


Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

by mirawonderfulstar



Series: The Circle Game (Heiffel Dadfic universe) [1]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, SPOILERS THROUGH EPISODE 48: THETA SCENARIO, de-aged Hilbert (kind of), the star pulls some Weird Shit, this picks up right after episode 28: Who's There?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-11 17:13:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12939921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: What are little boys made of? After Eiffel manages to get Lovelace's ship back to the station by pure luck and happenstance, a small child appears on the Hephaestus- a child with the memories and knowledge of a much, much younger Alexander Hilbert. As Eiffel is the only one who seems to think it's safe to keep him on board, he winds up with babysitting duty, and learns a little more about Hilbert and himself in the process.Heiffel, plus some reluctant parenting to Hilbert's child double.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AU set after episode 28: Who’s There?
> 
> Potential spoilers through episode 48: Theta Scenario which is where I was when I started writing this. I’m still only up to episode 54: The Watchtower as of finishing it, but I'm preeeeeetty sure I didn't touch on anything covered later than 48. 
> 
> This isn't beta-read.

“Uh, commander?” Hera said, jerking Minkovski out of what felt like the first sleep she’d had in months. They’d managed to get Eiffel back after about ten days, through some combination of luck and extremely quick thinking on Hilbert’s part, and had spent the last thirty hours steadily dismantling the smoldering wreckage of Lovelace’s ship. There was absolutely no chance it’d make it back to Earth after what Eiffel had had to do to it to get back to them and they needed the parts to hold themselves in the air after the whole shifts in gravity thing. Didn’t stop either Lovelace or Minkovski from being bitter.

“What is it, Hera?” she snapped, rubbing her tired eyes.

“My long-range sensors are picking up something coming towards us. Not big enough to be a ship.”

“Maybe a comet? Are any of the comets we’ve mapped scheduled to come back through?”

“Negative, but it would seem that the change in the star’s mass has altered the orbit of the nearest one.”

Minkovski groaned. “Is it on an intercept?”

“I said that, didn’t I?” Hera replied testily. “It’s going to hit us in about twenty-two hours unless we do something about it.”

Minkovski unzipped herself from her sleeping bag and harness and began to get dressed. “Who’s on night watch?”

“Captain Lovelace. Officer Eiffel’s asleep.”

“Good. Don’t wake him, he looked like hell when we pulled him out of the shuttle. Where’s Hilbert?”

“Also asleep. Seems he’s really taking advantage of not being chained up in the observation deck, I don’t think I’ve seen him voluntarily go to bed during his off shift since we’ve been up here.”

“Let him know what’s going on and tell him we’re coming to see him.”

 

“Let me make sure I understand.” Hilbert said, looking from Minkovski to Lovelace with an expression that plainly said he couldn’t believe his ears. “You want to know if I can build a weapon to shoot a comet from the sky.”

Minkovski stared him down, unamused. “Well, seeing as we can’t change the orbit of the Hephaestus until we finish the repairs, and seeing as those repairs are, by your own projection, going to take a week, yes, I’d say we need a weapon.”

“Hate to sound like Eiffel, but this is not Star Trek. Cannot just build weapon out of nothing and have it ready to go in the next day.”

“You can and you will, or you can spend what might be the last twenty-two hours of your miserable life double-timing the repairs so we can move the station with a minimal amount of damage.” Lovelace said. Hilbert sighed.

“Very well. Weapon it is.” He gestured towards the door of his quarters. “Are you going to let me back into my lab, or will I need to send you for supplies?”

Lovelace grimaced. “As much as I hate to admit it, you’ve been surprisingly decent the last couple weeks. Saved Eiffel’s life, saved my life, helped us get Eiffel back…”

Minkovski rolled her eyes at the way Hilbert’s lit up.

“So yeah, you can do your work in the lab. I’m coming to keep an eye on you, though.” Lovelace finished.

Hilbert grunted. “Acceptable.”

“Minkovski, you can go back to bed if you want. I’ll call you if there’s any trouble.” Lovelace said, her hand on the gun that sat on her hip. Minkovski nodded gratefully but declined the offer, and the three of them floated out of Hilbert’s spartan quarters.

 

Nineteen hours and two changings of the guard later and Hilbert had build what Eiffel kept gleefully referring to as a “phase cannon”. It was really more like a giant magnifying glass in principle, used to focus the light from the star into energy that would destroy the comet as it approached. And it would take a spacewalk to install.

Eiffel volunteered to do the walk with Hilbert, pointing out that Lovelace was still recuperating from her brush with death and Minkovski was running on too little sleep, and Lovelace reluctantly agreed. Minkovski, Lovelace noticed, seemed extremely wary of letting Eiffel back into space after what had almost happened to him the last time he’d left the ship, but she didn’t stop him from going.

Half an hour later Lovelace wished she had.

There was another solar storm just as the pair were finishing installing Hilbert’s weapon. They got back inside alright, shaken and out of breath but unhurt and with the weapon securely hooked up, but it was a near thing, and Minkovski was almost beside herself with anger at the whole situation.

“Hilbert, Lovelace, get down to the bridge and locate that comet. I want it shot down before it gets any closer.”

“In this turbulence I doubt that’s going to be a possibility.” Eiffel said, rubbing his shoulder where his suit had been pressing.

“I don’t care, try anyway! We don’t know how long this storm could last and we can’t wait for a chunk of ice and rock to crash into us! Hera!” Minkovski demanded, turning away from the others to shout in the vague direction of the ceiling. “Why didn’t you warn us about the solar storm?”

“Do you honestly think I have any kind of predictive capabilities where this star is concerned anymore? It’s been doing weird stuff for months! I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary until it was already happening!”

Minkovski sighed in frustration. Eiffel grimaced sympathetically, although whether it was for Hera or for Minkovski he wasn’t sure.

“Should we maybe batten down the hatches? Brace for impact just in case?”

“Yeah, we should. I’ll go try to get the modifications in engineering secure. You move the stuff we stored in the secret lab to somewhere more… internal. Hilbert’s lab for the time being, I guess.”

“Sir yes sir.” Eiffel said with a dramatic salute, and hurried off.

There was one positive thing that could be said for zero gravity, and that was how easy it made moving heavy objects. Not that Eiffel had a ton of trouble with that on Earth, but still. It took him a single trip to move all the stuff they’d salvaged from the ruins of Lovelace’s ship from the off-the-grid murder lab to the on-the-grid murder lab. He was in the process of strapping it all down when the ship shook violently. Eiffel heard a high-pitched yell, quickly cut off.

“Minkovski? What was that? Did the comet his us?” he shouted in the direction of the comm panel, counting on Hera to patch him through as he maneuvered the still-unsecured cryo pod off his legs and safely into the corner.

“No, that was Hilbert’s weapon going off. The comet’s been destroyed but it seems like the cannon was, too. The recoil knocked it off into the star.”

“Well, that’s about par for the course.” Eiffel grumbled. “Was that you who shouted just now, Hera? Or was it Minkovski?”

“It most certainly wasn’t me.” Minkovski said coolly.

“Hera? You?”

“Nope.”

“And I’ve heard Hilbert scream and it wasn’t him… Lovelace…?”

“Nobody screamed here, Eiffel.” Lovelace said, sounding amused. “Are you sure it wasn’t you?”

“What? My scream is much manlier than that! I have the most masculine of screams! How dare you even say that? And besides,” Eiffel said, dropping his hyperbolic tone, “Why would I ask all of you if you heard anything if I was the one who screamed?”

“Whatever, Eiffel. Get up to the bridge so we can regroup before we check on the damage around the station.” Minkovski said, but Eiffel hardly heard her. He’d pushed away from the wall after securing the cryo pod and spotted what he had to assume was the source of the sound.

Curled in the opposite corner, hiding under one of Hilbert’s desks, was a small boy, completely naked.

Eiffel headed towards him slowly, trying not to make any sudden movements. The boy watched him impassively with large pale eyes which struck Eiffel as familiar, somehow. He couldn’t have been more than five years old.

Eiffel crouched down level with him, trying to get a closer look at him. He seemed to be a normal human boy, with fine hair and grey eyes. There was just the tiny problem that they had definitely not brought a little kid along on this mission, which meant this was either some super-secret and _super creepy_ experiment of Hilbert’s or… something else.

“Hera, get the others down here.” Eiffel whispered. He reached out a hand and lightly grasped the boy’s arm. He didn’t react at all.

“Hey little guy. Can you come out from under there?” Eiffel said, smiling softly and giving the boy’s arm a small tug. The boy furrowed his brow in an expression Eiffel, again, found inexplicably familiar. He didn’t resist being pulled out from under the desk, however. Nor did he resist when Eiffel bundled him into one of Hilbert’s jackets that was clamped to the wall.

Eiffel smiled again, and the boy gave him a sort of grimace back, looking around the room with his eerie eyes.

“I know, the whole ship shaking thing was scary, wasn’t it? It should be done now, though, the boss lady told me everything’s fine.” The boy looked up at him for a moment, then continued to look around the room. He didn’t seem to have the hang of the zero-gravity thing and kept trying to jerk back to his original position. “Assuming you’re a real person and not some… I don’t know, nefarious lab-grown virus-clone, you should be old enough to talk. So… what’s your name?”

The boy continued to look around the lab and didn’t say anything.

“Okay. Can’t talk, then. That’s cool. Minkovski would probably say I talk enough for two people anyway. Speaking of…”

The door to the lab opened and the others floated in, first Minkovski, then Lovelace, then Hilbert.

“Hey guys, we have… well…” Eiffel gestured to the boy, who was now staring down Eiffel’s shipmates rather than looking around at everything. No, not his shipmates… Hilbert.

Eiffel looked from the boy to the station’s resident mad scientist and felt a sharp pain in his chest as it slotted into place. The pair were moving towards each other, slowly and warily, with identical expressions of suspicion in their identical grey eyes.

“Oh my god.” Eiffel breathed. “Minkovski, Lovelace, are you seeing this?”

“Oh yeah.” Minkovski responded in a low voice. “This is… really weird.”

Hilbert crouched down to the boy’s eye level, his expression still one of distrust. The boy, however, smiled and reached out to grab Hilbert’s jumpsuit. “…папа.”

Hilbert pushed the boy violently away, and he would have gone spinning backwards into the wall if Eiffel hadn’t caught him. “нет. I am…not your father.” And he turned and fled from the room.

Eiffel settled the child on his hip and made to pet his hair as his lip trembled. “Don’t worry, he’s not nice to anyone. The exact opposite, in fact. ‘Nice’ doesn’t figure into his evil plans. You didn’t do anything wrong.” He said reassuringly, hoping the kid would understand his tone even if he didn’t know the words. It seemed to work, because he laid his head on Eiffel’s shoulder. Eiffel squeezed him gently.

“What the hell,” Lovelace said in her most _I’m doing my best not to yell but it’s costing me something_ voice, “is going on?”

Eiffel glanced at the door which was still swinging on its hinge from Hilbert’s retreat. “Well,” he began, shifting his weight so the boy was settled more comfortably against him, “either Hilbert’s been growing a human clone using his own DNA in his lab since the original mission and we just now found him or…”

“Or what?” Lovelace said.

“I’m taking suggestions.” Eiffel responded. “What do you think’s going on, Minkovski?”

Minkovski let out a long breath and shrugged. “I have no idea. A lot of completely absurd, unexplainable things have happened up here but this…” She frowned. “Wait a minute.”

“What?” Lovelace and Eiffel said in unison.

“Two weeks ago, when the star changed. It… talked to us with Eiffel’s voice.”

Eiffel stared at her, incredulous. “You think _the star_ grew a mini-me of Hilbert?”

Minkovski shrugged again, her expression helpless. “Stranger things have happened.”

“That’s true.” Lovelace agreed.

“What are we going to do with him?” Minkovski said.

Lovelace looked completely out of her element. “I have no idea. What _can_ we do with him?”

“You can stop talking about him like he’s some kind of threat, for one thing.” Eiffel said, firing up. “As far as I can tell this is _a human child_ so we’re not gonna discuss options like, I don’t know, throwing him out the airlock unless you can give me _proof positive_ it’s necessary.”

Minkovski stared at him a moment, then nodded. “Fair enough. You’re responsible for him until we figure something out.”

“What?!” Eiffel said sharply. “Why me?”

“You’re the one holding him.” Lovelace pointed out.

“Yeah,” Minkovski said, a small grin spreading over her face. “Since you’re so concerned about little Alex-“

“Don’t call him that.” Eiffel said with a shudder, looking from Minkovski to the head of the boy who was now dozing lightly on his shoulder. “This isn’t Alexander Hilbert. Not yet. This is Dmitri Volodin.”

Eiffel watched Minkovski and Lovelace look at each other but he ignored them, heading around them and out the still-swinging door. “I’m gonna go, I don’t know, put him to bed in my quarters. It’s my turn on night shift. You two should get some sleep.”

Eiffel headed back to his quarters, trying to calm his anger at Lovelace and Minkovski. He’d probably have found one of _them_ protecting the kid a little funny, after all. None of the crew were really what Eiffel would call good parent material, least of all him. But until Dmitri Volodin gave them reason to suspect he was dangerous, Eiffel sure as hell was going to make sure he was safe. It was the least he could do, Eiffel thought, securing the boy in his sleeping bag and giving him an absentminded pat on the head, after… everything.

Eiffel sighed as he looked at the boy. He knew what he was going to have to do but that didn’t mean he liked it.

“Hera, can you keep an eye on the kid for me? Let me know if he wakes up?”

“Of course, Officer Eiffel.” Hera said hesitantly. “And uh… Doug? Are you sure this whole thing is a good idea? Why would the star, or the extraterrestrial intelligence communicating through the star, make a younger clone of Hilbert?”

“Hell if I know. To both your questions.” Eiffel closed the door gently. “But until we get some answers someone’s gotta look after him and I guess that someone is me.”

 

“Hilbert? Can I come in?” Eiffel asked, rapping a fist on the hard metal door of Hilbert’s quarters. A full minute of silence went by before Hilbert opened the door with a glare.

“If you are here to accuse me of-“

“Not accusing. Jeez, would it kill you to turn down the paranoia for one second. I just wanna talk to you.”

“About what?” Hilbert sighed in exasperation, but moved aside to left Eiffel into the room anyway.

Eiffel rolled his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe about the five-year-old currently bundled up in my sleeping bag?”

“He is four.”

“What?”

“He is four.” Hilbert repeated more emphatically. “Still has all his hair.”

Eiffel’s mind flashed back to the only conversation he’d ever had with Hilbert about himself. “Oh. Right.” Hilbert snorted and turned away from him as Eiffel rubbed his neck awkwardly. “Look, we’re all a little out of our depth here, doc. This isn’t a good place for a kid but until we figure out what’s going on, he’s here and I’m gonna need your help with him.”

This time it was Hilbert’s turn to say “What?” He turned back to Eiffel with an expression of horror.

“Officer Eiffel. I must impress upon you that I know nothing about children. Have never been around a child longer than it takes to pass one at an airport or a grocery store.”

“Yeah, I get the impression you’re not alone in that.” Eiffel said, thinking of Lovelace’s face earlier. “Luckily, I’m pretty okay with kids. I need your help with… other stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Well, for starters, he doesn’t seem to want to talk. I’m guessing you didn’t learn English until you were a lot older.”

“Not until I went to university, no.”

“Exactly. So you’re the better one to try and talk to him. See if he can tell us anything about what’s going on.”

Hilbert scoffed. “He is _four_.” He repeated.

“Yeah, but he’s also you, doc. Aren’t you the tiniest bit curious?”

“No.” Hilbert said shortly.

“That’s right, I forgot. ‘Emotions have no place in science.’” Eiffel said, doing a mocking imitation of Hilbert’s accent. “Being curious would require you to actually _care_.”

Hilbert didn’t respond, but just looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes.

Eiffel sighed. “Look, I could get Minkovski to order you to help, but I don’t really think I need to. I dunno where that kid came from, but I do know he’s scared, and alone, and a trillion miles and who knows how many years away from anyone who loves him. And I know you don’t care about people, but you have to care about _that_.”

“You are mistaken.” Hilbert’s voice was very cold. “Kindly get out of my quarters.”

“Okay then. Fine.” Eiffel said with some disappointment, opening the door. “I’ll have to do my best with Dmitri alone.” He headed away down the corridor, not bothering to close the door behind him. After a moment Hilbert called to him down the hall.

“Mitya.”

Eiffel turned back to see Hilbert floating in the doorway. His expression was pinched, and as Eiffel watched hopefully, he raised a hand to his face and rubbed at his brow, hiding his pale eyes. “Family never called me Dmitri. Always Mitya.”

Eiffel’s stomach gave a funny little flop. “Thanks, doc. That’s a start.”

 

The night shift dragged by even slower than usual for Eiffel, partially because he wasn’t talking to Hera. After an hour of her trying to persuade him that the whole tiny-Hilbert thing was ominous and probably dangerous and another half hour of her prodding him to talk about his feelings, he’d told her to leave him alone to listen for transmissions. Unfortunately, it seemed like the aliens weren’t in the mood for music, and he was relieved when Hera announced that it was 0700 and his shift was over.

Eiffel chatted with Minkovski over seaweed coffee substitute, let her know there was nothing to report and nodded along to her suggestions for repairs for the day. Truth be told he wasn’t really listening until Minkovski asked, with a tiny smirk on her face, “So, how’s your kid doing?”

Eiffel spat out a mouthful of rehydrated eggs. Minkovski threw him a napkin with a noise of disgust. “Sorry, commander. And he’s not my kid. He’s _a_ kid, just a random, you know, kid. If he’s _anyone’s_ he should be Hilbert’s, but like…”

“Hilbert’s the last person here I’d trust with a child, and that’s including the plant monster.”

“Yeah, well… I went to see him for advice last night and he totally stiffed me.” Eiffel said, wiping the last of the egg off Minkovski and wadding up the napkin. “I don’t think he’s gonna be much help unless we want Dmitri dissected or turned into Decima food or something.”

“Hmm.”

“Anyway, I should probably go check up on him, he’s been asleep for almost eleven hours now which means he probably won’t be for much longer.”

“Okay. Are you going to be available for repair duty this afternoon or am I going to have to enlist Hilbert’s help?”

“I dunno if you’re aware of this, Minkovski, but looking after a kid is pretty much a full-time job and- “

“You want me to enlist Hilbert." She sighed. "That’s all you had to say.”

 

Eiffel returned to his quarters to find Dmitri still sound asleep, to his relief. He really wanted a shower.

The water heater in the station was still evidently having problems, but Eiffel would take what he could get- it had been a long, weird night and would probably stay weird- that’s what the Hephaestus was like, after all.

Dmitri had woken up by the time Eiffel got out of the shower and floated back out to get clean clothes from his closet. He watched Eiffel move around the room, unusually calm and quiet for a child.

“Well, it’s good to know that permanent aura of patience the doc has isn’t something he learned at evil genius school. If you have it I guess he’s always had it.” Eiffel said, pulling on his clothes and moving to unwrap Dmitri from his sleeping bag. “There you go, that’s better isn’t it, Mitya.”

The child reached out a hand to grab at the water droplets clinging to the strands of Eiffel’s hair. He looked from them to Eiffel and babbled something in Russian.

Eiffel smiled. “Yeah, I bet. You hungry?” Eiffel mimed lifting a spoon to his mouth and eating, then smiled again. Dmitri frowned, and Eiffel repeated the action. “Hungry?” He rubbed his stomach.

Dmitri nodded vigorously, and Eiffel laughed. “Okay, let’s go get you some chow. We don’t have much, but I know another four-year-old who just loves scrambled eggs.”

Eiffel made to set the boy down, but he suddenly flung his arms around his neck. “Oof, okay, I can’t keep carrying you everywhere. You gotta get your space legs eventually, kiddo.”

“Mitya.” The boy said, such seriousness in such a small voice.

Eiffel, thinking of every cross-cultural meeting he’d ever seen in film, grinned as he tapped Dmitri lightly on his chest. “Mitya.” He tapped himself. “Eiffel.”

“Eiffel.” Dmitri said, prodding Eiffel in the cheek. Eiffel nodded, and, impulsively, gave Dmitri a swift kiss on the nose. The boy’s face twitched for a moment before he giggled.

Eiffel set Dmitri down and gestured for him to follow. It took some time and several false starts but soon the pair were drifting along the corridor to the mess like seasoned veterans.

Minkovski had left by the time they arrived, but Lovelace was seated, lazily eating her own breakfast.

“Oh hey, Eiffel. How’s the kid?”

“We’re both good, thanks for asking.” Eiffel said with an eye roll. Lovelace just grinned at him.

“I hear you got out of repair duty because you’re babysitter.”

“Yeah, well, do we have an alternative? We can’t exactly let Dmitri loose and hope for the best. He’s four.” Eiffel finished mixing some eggs and headed over to the table to show Dmitri how to eat them. “Here ya go, little dude. It’s not that hard once you get used to it.”

“That wasn’t my point.”

“What was your point, then, captain?” Eiffel said through gritted teeth, focusing on helping Dmitri.

“Just that you seem pretty good with kids. I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

Eiffel felt his stomach clench. This really wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have right now. Lovelace kept looking at him, though, so eventually he turned to her with a sigh.

“I… I have a daughter, back on Earth. She was about Dmitri’s age when I joined the Hephaestus mission.”

Lovelace nodded slowly. “That makes sense.” She finished the last bite of her breakfast and stood up from the table. “Just don’t get too attached to this kid because you miss your own. He might not even turn out to be human.”

Eiffel glared at her. “With all due respect, captain, butt out.”

Lovelace shrugged and made her way towards the door, where Hilbert was just about to enter the room. “He’s all yours, doc.” Lovelace said with a small slap on the shoulder. Hilbert watched her go, then turned to look into the room. Eiffel waved for him to come sit down.

Hilbert crossed the room and made his own breakfast then took a seat across from Eiffel. “So, you were curious after all.” Eiffel said triumphantly, looking from Hilbert to Dmitri and back again.

Hilbert raised an eyebrow. “Was merely hungry.”

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

Dmitri finished his eggs and looked at Hilbert curiously.

“Should warn you that I am allergic to peanuts.” Hilbert told Eiffel, pointedly ignoring looking at the child. “Would advise keeping them away from him. Will not kill him, but would make for very unpleasant day for you.”

“Thanks, doc.”

Dmitri chose this moment to say something else in Russian, which caused Hilbert to glare at him.

Dmitri shrunk in on himself just a little, and Eiffel put his hand on the boy’s back. “Be nice to the kid, okay? He’s probably having a hard time too, and you being your usual jerk wad self isn’t going to help.” Eiffel snapped.

Hilbert threw his hands in the air. “Yes, of course, is always Hilbert’s fault. Not like any of this is uncomfortable for _me_. Try to remember who this child is, Eiffel.”

“I know who he is.” Eiffel said, feeling his temper rising. “He’s you, before you turned into…” Eiffel gestured towards him, waving his hand up and down.

Dmitri said something else in Russian, and Hilbert got up and left in a huff.

“Eiffel?” Dmitri said, turning to Eiffel with a frown.

Eiffel smiled and patted the boy on the head. “Yeah, he’s an asshole. Just ignore him.”

 

The next two days were some of the calmest there had been aboard the Hephaestus since Hilbert’s little Christmas mutiny, but for Eiffel, they were filled with an entirely different kind of tension than the recent months of constantly wondering if they were all about to die. Minkovski, Lovelace, and Hera were still incredibly suspicious, Hilbert was… well, Hilbert, and Eiffel was quickly learning that there were only so many things you could do with a kid who didn’t understand you.

At least Dmitri seemed to be a fast learner, Eiffel thought dispiritedly as he shut his eyes and tried to get some sleep the third night. They’d worked out a rudimentary communication system based mostly on hand signals and three or four English words. In the spirit of most young children, Dmitri’s favorite of these was “no.”

For some reason, tonight, going to bed was a “no”. Eiffel didn’t understand. Dmitri hadn’t had any problem going to sleep the last two nights. Nothing had happened during the day that Eiffel would have thought would upset him. He’d even tried holding the boy for a while, and though it did get him to close his eyes and sleep in Eiffel’s arms, as soon as he set him down he’d wake back up again and start jabbering away.

By the time midnight rolled around, Eiffel had had enough. He got back out of his sleeping bag and gestured for Dmitri to put his jacket back on before leading him out of the room and down the corridor.

“Hera? Is Hilbert awake?”

“He’s in his lab, Officer Eiffel.”

“Good.”

When Eiffel and Dmitri got to Hilbert’s lab Eiffel was surprised to see the door open.

“I thought you might come by.” Hilbert grunted, not turning around from his work when Eiffel cleared his throat to speak.

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

Hilbert didn’t answer, instead taking his time to seal up a container and place it back inside a fridge full of jars. “Because of what happened with Captain Lovelace today.”

Eiffel thought back to early that afternoon, when he’d brought Dmitri into engineering just to see how everyone’s progress on repairs was going, and Minkovski and Hilbert had made stilted conversation with Eiffel before Lovelace straightened up from her work to tell him to stop acting like everything was normal and to get out.

“Wow, what a good guess, doc, do you have a PhD in psych as well?” Eiffel groused.

“I have told you before, my doctorate is in- “

“Yeah yeah, I remember.” He felt Dmitri tug on the end of his shirt and lifted the boy into his arms. “I actually came down here because Mitya can’t sleep and I was hoping you might be able to tell me what’s wrong with him.”

Hilbert swooped towards them so fast it threw Eiffel off balance. After he caught himself and finished glaring, he said, “Nothing’s _physically_ wrong with him. At least, I don’t think so. He just won’t go to sleep. Keeps talking to himself.”

Hilbert looked from Eiffel, to Dmitri, and he let out a great sigh, his shoulders slumping. Eiffel noticed that he looked like he hadn’t been sleeping, either. He felt a little shock of compassion shiver through him, and he wished for a moment he had another hand so he could hold Dmitri and lay a hand on Hilbert’s shoulder at the same time.

“Mitya?” Hilbert began, tentatively. Dmitri began to chatter away again, and Hilbert listened, nodding every once in a while, talking back. His expression was very, very sad.

“Well?” Eiffel asked when they stopped talking. Dmitri snuggled closer to Eiffel with a small sigh. Hilbert’s gaze shifted from him to Eiffel.

“He misses sister. He misses cats. He wants to go home.”

“What did you tell him?”

Hilbert turned away again. “Told him wanting things does not make them happen. Told him…” Hilbert bowed his head, his hands splayed out on the desk in front of him, “Told him I want to go home, too.”

“Come back to my quarters with us.” Eiffel said, speaking up on impulse.

Hilbert turned to look at him with an incredulous expression. “What?”

“You look like you haven’t been sleeping, and this one hasn’t been sleeping, and I know _I’d_ sleep a lot better if I knew you both were better rested, so…”

“Since when do you care about my rest?”

“Honestly, I don’t, but I’ve got a hunch Mitya might sleep better if you do.” Eiffel put on his best ‘sad kitten’ face. “Come on, Hilbert.”

“You know I hate when you-“ Hilbert began, then stopped and shrugged. “Very well. Let me get sleeping bag from my own quarters.”

 

Eiffel’s hunch turned out to be partially correct. The trio returned to his quarters, attached Hilbert’s sleeping bag to the wall, and despite Hilbert’s protests Eiffel handed Dmitri off to him to share his sleeping bag. The boy wasn’t satisfied with this. After some pouting, a volley of Russian, and Hilbert swearing because the Dmitri had kicked him as he tried to sleep, it became apparent that Dmitri wanted Eiffel within arm’s reach. Eiffel thought irrepressibly of being a little kid himself and crawling into bed between his mom and dad- a security sandwich. He moved his sleeping bag so he was beside Hilbert and moved Dmitri to his own sleeping bag for good measure. Hilbert shot him a look of mingled relief and thanks, and Eiffel winked at him.

“There, will you go to sleep now, you little ingrate?” Eiffel murmured, brushing a hand through Dmitri’s hair. The boy didn’t answer, but closed his eyes and snuggled close to Eiffel. Eiffel sighed and looked up at Hilbert who was watching him blankly.

“You okay, doc?” Eiffel asked in a whisper.

“Why do you care?” Hilbert whispered back.

Eiffel shrugged as gently as he could, trying not to disturb Dmitri. “I dunno. I probably shouldn’t after everything you’ve done. You’re probably waiting until I have my guard down so you can pump me full of yet another virus.”

Hilbert chuckled softly. He rolled away from Eiffel, looking out into the room rather than across at his sleeping companion. “No, Eiffel. Am not okay.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Eiffel extricated an arm from his sleeping bag and pulled Hilbert’s closer to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and giving him a brief squeeze before tucking his arm back inside his own sleeping bag and closing his eyes.

He heard Hilbert chuckle again before he fell asleep. “Good night, Officer Eiffel.”

 

Eiffel was woken up in the morning by a comm from Minkovski. “Eiffel, I want to see you on the bridge in five minutes. Leave the kid in your quarters, please.”

Eiffel yawned and looked around to find Hilbert already out of his sleeping bag and disconnecting it from the wall.

“What are you doing?” Eiffel asked, feeling, ludicrously, hurt.

“Returning to my quarters.” Hilbert said without looking up from his task. “Much to do today.”

“Uh… right. Could you keep an eye on Mitya for a bit while I talk to Minkowski?”

Hilbert looked over at where Dmitri was rubbing his eyes and sighed. “If you insist.”

“Good. Make sure he brushes his teeth and get him some clean clothes, okay?”

“Very well.” Hilbert replied neutrally. Eiffel nodded and rushed to his bathroom to brush his own teeth and wash his face before going to see whatever it was the commander wanted.

What she wanted, it turned out, was to play him a bit of tape Hera had recorded from the previous night. From inside his quarters.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing, Eiffel?” Minkovski said in exasperation after she finished playing the tape and he just looked at her.

Eiffel squinted at her while he tried to calm his temper. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Minkovski said in a tone cold as the empty void outside the station, “why are you treating Hilbert like he can be trusted? Why are you so invested in this child? Need I remind you,” her voice rose, “that he could be a dangerous alien incursion?”

“The last time the aliens mimicked one of us, they took my voice so they could communicate. Why would they turn into a kid that can’t even speak English? Why not just clone regular Hilbert?”

“I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean he’s safe. Either of them. You can’t be getting all buddy buddy with Hilbert just because… well…” Minkovski looked uncomfortable. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but it’s obvious you feel some kind of pity for Hilbert and you’re using the kid to alleviate it.”

Eiffel felt like she’d slapped him. “Who died and made you my therapist?”

“Eiffel…” Minkovski began, then stopped and sighed heavily. “Look. I get this is important to you. But I’m really worried. Hera’s worried. Hell, even Lovelace is worried. If something goes horribly wrong, if the kid does turn out to be a threat, or if Hilbert uses this as an opportunity to hit you while you’re distracted… I just don’t want this to blow up in your face.”

“What are you suggesting we do instead? Run some tests? Because last I checked, the only person qualified to do that is our own Orphan Black, anyway. Not exactly an unbiased observer.”

Minkovski rubbed a hand across her face and muttered, “It’s too early for this.”

Eiffel patted her hand. “Look, I appreciate your concern and I get why you think it’s necessary. But I can’t think of any alternative. Can you?”

“No.” Minkovski admitted. “Just… please be careful. If anything weird happens, tell someone.”

“Can do. And can you and Lovelace quit, you know, acting like Dmitri’s a bomb about to go off? I think he’s picked up on it and it’s not great.”

“We’ll try.”

“Thanks.” Eiffel smiled.

“You’re welcome. And Eiffel? I think Hilbert should run some tests, actually. You should supervise that.”

 

He left the bridge in a good mood which lasted until he returned to his quarters to find them empty. He’d only been gone ten minutes and Hilbert hadn’t been able to keep his word that long?! He must’ve taken Dmitri down to his lab. Whether for nefarious purposes or just because he was too impatient to wait for Eiffel to get back remained to be seen.

Eiffel hurried down a deck, working himself into a rage as he went. It had only taken Hilbert a moment of Eiffel’s back being turned for him to snatch the kid. He was probably tampering with his blood as they spoke, or prodding around his organs, or-

Or they weren’t in the lab. It was completely empty.

“Hera?” Eiffel asked, catching his breath from his flight down here.

“Good morning, Officer Eiffel.” Hera chirped.

“Morning. Can you locate Hilbert and Dmitri?” Eiffel said in a rush.

Hera sighed. “They’re in the mess.”

Eiffel took another deep breath. “Thank god.”

“You know you could have asked me that before you freaked yourself out, right?”

“Thanks, Hera, didn’t need that.” Eiffel said with a groan before heading to the mess hall.

“Hilbert! Why didn’t you tell me where you were going?” Eiffel demanded, storming into the room and poking Hilbert sharply in the chest. Hilbert drifted backwards slightly, then righted himself, rubbing the spot where Eiffel had prodded.

“He was hungry.” Hilbert said, gesturing to where Dmitri was sitting cross-legged, eating some pancakes.

Eiffel deflated slightly. “Oh.”

“What, thought I was dissecting him?” Hilbert scoffed.

“Something like that.” Eiffel said sheepishly.

“Not as stupid as I always worried, then.” Hilbert said with a slight grin. Eiffel glared at him.

“Just… please comm me next time, okay?”

“Hmm.”

“And uh, Minkowski thinks you should run some tests on him. She told me to keep an eye on you while you do it.”

“Understandable.”

Dmitri finished his food and beamed at Eiffel, who gave him a small wave and a smile back.

And so Eiffel, Hilbert, and Dmitri spent the day in Hilbert’s lab, Dmitri chattering away in Russian and Hilbert occasionally talking back, and Eiffel watching them both with a kind of wistful ache. Somehow this very serious but very talkative little boy had grown up to be… Hilbert. This kid that Eiffel had never seen cry but who wouldn’t go to sleep unless he was snuggled against Eiffel’s chest turned into the mad scientist who’d pumped Eiffel’s blood full of a deadly virus and who would happily kill even more people if he thought it was necessary to protect his work.

But whatever he’d grow up to be, right now Dmitri was four, alone without any adults who could look take care of him properly, and cut off from everyone but Hilbert because he didn’t speak English and they didn’t speak Russian. Maybe Minkovski had a point. Maybe this was all misplaced pity, not for Hilbert but for-

“Eiffel.” Hilbert snapped, jerking Eiffel out of his thoughts.

“Huh?”

Hilbert rolled his eyes and huffed impatiently. “ _I said_ , am done with the tests and can find nothing out of the ordinary.”

Eiffel headed over to where Dmitri was still sitting cross legged in the air next to Hilbert’s work station. “Nothing? But… you gotta have some kind of theory, at least. Why is he here? Why… you know, fun-size Hilbert instead of the regular candy bar?”

Hilbert gave him a look and Eiffel backtracked. “Okay, that was a weird comparison. I just meant- “

“I know what you meant.” Hilbert said, turning away to put his gloves in the biohazard box on the wall. “Comparing DNA will take a while, perhaps a week. However, yes. I do have theory.”

“Great! What is it?”

Hilbert sighed, hunching his shoulders. “Need to ask Dmitri some questions.”

“I’m not stopping you.” Eiffel said with a sweep of his hand. “If you think it’ll help…”

“It will not. Need the results of DNA test to be sure. But will ask the questions, yes.” Hilbert straightened up, looking like he was steeling himself for something, and turned to the boy.

Whatever Hilbert said next made Dmitri frown, but he answered. Whatever came next, however, made him glare at Hilbert and push off from his position to join Eiffel across the room.

“Up?” Dmitri asked, and Eiffel obliged and settled the kid on his hip.

“What did you say to him?” Eiffel asked as Hilbert came towards them with a scowl.

“I said this wouldn’t help.”

“I wanna know what you said to him, he’s obviously upset.” Eiffel snapped as Dmitri buried his face in Eiffel's shoulder.

“Fine. But you must convince him to answer the rest of my questions first.”

Eiffel glared at Hilbert. “You’d think you could be a little more compassionate with _yourself_.”

Eiffel ignored Hilbert’s laugh as he stroked Dmitri’s head and got him to look up again. “Hey, I know you can’t understand me but I need you to answer Hilbert’s questions.” Eiffel murmured softly. “We need some information. Hilbert, tell him what I’m saying.”

Hilbert repeated Eiffel’s words in Russian, doing a fairly good job of mimicking his caring tone, as well, Eiffel thought. Dmitri nodded but didn’t let go of Eiffel.

For several minutes Eiffel just stood there holding the boy as Hilbert and he talked. Whatever they were saying obviously wasn’t very pleasant for Dmitri but it was having the same negative effect on Hilbert, who looked emotionally exhausted by the time he said to Eiffel, “That is that. So far, my theory is substantiated, but will have to wait for DNA test for concrete proof.”

“Are you gonna tell me what all that was about?” Eiffel asked.

“Will you leave me alone if I don’t?”

“No."

Hilbert rubbed a hand down his face. “Hera, please ask Captain Lovelace and Commander Minkovski if either one of them could watch Mitya for the night. Send them results of tests, tell them he is normal human and cannot harm them. Offer to help with communication if need be. Officer Eiffel and I need to have private conversation.”

“And are you planning to share whatever revelation you’ve just had with the class, or is this another Alexander Hilbert top-secret project?” Hera responded snappishly.

“This is personal, Hera.” Hilbert said tiredly.

“I don’t think you should get the luxury of making that call after everything you’ve done.” Hera said.

“Hera,” Eiffel said tentatively. “Maybe I can deal with this? I know we don’t trust Hilbert but… can you all trust me?”

Hera was silent for a few moments. “Captain Lovelace says she’ll keep an eye on Dmitri for the evening. Whatever the two of you need to talk about you better give Minkovski a report on it later, Eiffel. The two of them are just getting done with some repairs in filtration, if you want to meet them there.”

“Thanks, Hera. You’re the best.”

“I know.” Hera said with a smile in her voice.

 

“Hilbert, can you tell Mitya that we need to talk about some stuff and that he needs to stay with these nice pretty ladies for a while?” Eiffel asked, winking at Minkovski, who gave him a sarcastic smile.

Hilbert spoke to Dmitri for a moment and Dmitri clung even tighter to Eiffel, turning his big grey eyes on Eiffel with an expression of indignation.

Eiffel gave him a little squeeze back and kissed his nose. Dmitri giggled and behind him Eiffel saw Lovelace raise her eyebrows at Minkovski but ignored them. “Tell him we’ll be back, we’re not going anywhere permanent. He’ll be safe with them, right ladies?” Eiffel glared at them and mouthed the word “smile”.

It took another couple of minutes but eventually between Eiffel’s soft reassurance and Hilbert’s low murmur of Russian, Dmitri let go of Eiffel and let them walk away down the corridor to the disused lab where Hera’s sensors couldn’t see them.

“Is this cloak and dagger stuff really necessary, doc?” Eiffel asked as they entered the room and Hilbert closed the door. “You’ve gotta know how fishy this looks. If you kill me in here they’ll absolutely have been prepared and expecting it.”

Hilbert gave him a look. “Fortunately killing you is not in plans. Need to talk to you about the boy.”

“Shoot.”

“…shoot what?”

“No, I mean… start talking. Sheesh.”

“Will need to wait for DNA tests to confirm but I think I can answer question ‘why fun-sized Hilbert.’.” Hilbert began. He took a deep breath. “I asked him what he remembered before coming here. He remembers Volgograd explosion, but none of the fallout. Doesn’t know parents are dead. Sister and cats haven’t gotten sick.”

“Huh.”

“Which means,” Hilbert continued, closing his eyes, “assuming extraterrestrial forces did make… Dmitri, they filtered something out of DNA. Something acquired in years following explosion.”

Eiffel considered this, nodding. “So, what? You worried there might be something inside you that you don’t understand? Something unnatural? That might be _dangerous_? Gee, I wonder how that would feel.” Eiffel rolled his eyes. “if you’re looking for sympathy- “

“No, Eiffel. You don’t understand, you never have. Am not about to explain the finer points of Decima virus to you, but trust me when I say this is not new information. Have been telling you for years that the work I do here is about studying effects of radiation on biological samples. If extraterrestrials who took your voice to communicate also made child, then difference in DNA may be useful to Decima research.”

Eiffel threw up his hands. “Are you ever gonna let that go?”

“You mean my life’s work? No.”

“So, you dragged me in here to pressure me into continuing to be your guinea pig?”

“No, but- “

“And you wanted Lovelace to keep an eye on Dmitri for the night so you’d have time to run some more wacky experiments?” Eiffel scoffed.

“No, wanted Lovelace to take Dmitri so I could have opportunity to do _this_.” And Hilbert kissed him.

Eiffel’s stomach lurched as he leaned into the kiss. Hilbert was not a great kisser, but he was pulling Eiffel towards him with such ferocity that it more than made up for it. His hands were on Eiffel’s hips and the back of his neck and whoa, they were drifting away from the walls into the center of the room.

“H-Hilbert?” Eiffel gasped as soon as he’d pulled away enough to manage it.

“Eiffel?”

“What was that?”

“What do you think?”

Eiffel swallowed heavily at the low growl of his voice. “I think we should do this in someone’s quarters and not floating through the room where I was almost killed by a giant spider.”

Hilbert chuckled. “Yes, alright.”

 

Five minutes later they were in Eiffel’s quarters and Hilbert was tearing at Eiffel’s jumpsuit while Eiffel stubbornly refused to give up on kissing him. It was actually going much better with Eiffel in the lead; now that Hilbert’s hands were distracted the rest of him seemed to be as well and he was letting Eiffel kiss him slowly, languidly, in contrast to the frenzy with which they were removing each other’s clothing. Eiffel began working on the jacket Hilbert always wore over his jumpsuit just as Hilbert managed to push Eiffel’s clothes down off his shoulders.

“Why do you- gah-“ Eiffel shivered slightly as Hilbert pinched his nipple, “why do you wear this stupid coat? Why did Goddard even design and produce these coats? It’s not like the temperature on a space station changes very much.”

“How many times has station lost environmental controls?” Hilbert reminded him, and Eiffel shrugged, then gasped when Hilbert slid a hand down the front of his jumpsuit.

“Would you slow down so I can get this. Fricking. Coat off.” Eiffel snarled. With a small _pop!_ he ripped the top button away at last and got at the zipper underneath, ignoring the noise of irritation Hilbert made as the button went flying away to be lost forever in the mess that was Eiffel’s quarters. With the jacket removed, Eiffel went to work on the jumpsuit and on Hilbert’s neck at the same time.

Hilbert moaned when Eiffel’s lips landed on his pulse point, and Eiffel crowed internally at Hilbert’s brief but evident loss of control. The hand stroking him stopped momentarily and Eiffel smiled. “Finally found a way to distract you, huh?” He kissed a line up Hilbert’s neck from under his chin to behind his ear.

“What is that- Eiffel, do that again- what is that supposed to mean?”

“Only that if I’d known your secret weakness was being kissed under the ear back when it was my sole mission to prevent everyone else on the station from getting any work done, these last couple of years might have gone very differently.” Eiffel said in between kisses, loving the small gasps and brief moans Hilbert let out. “God, it’s like nobody’s ever kissed you before.” A thought entered Eiffel’s mind. “People have kissed you before, right?”

“Years ago. Before I defected to America to work for Goddard.”

“When was that?”

Hilbert whimpered as Eiffel switched to kissing the other side of his neck. “Does it matter?”

“Yes. Being genuine is good, remember?”

“Twenty-six, twenty-seven years ago.”

Eiffel stopped what he was doing to pull back and look at Hilbert. “You haven’t gotten laid in twenty-seven years?”

“That was not what you asked.” Hilbert grumbled, looking back down at Eiffel’s hips and trying to push his jumpsuit down off them.

“So, what, you have sex but they don’t kiss you? What kind of men have you been fucking?” Eiffel felt irrationally angry at whoever it was who had slept with Hilbert but not kissed him. The man was a sociopathic wreck but he should at least be cherished by whoever was crazy enough to want to take him to bed.

“Evidently not large enough sample size to- “

“Sample size?! Hilbert!” Eiffel grabbed his wrist to stop him from pushing down Eiffel's boxers. “I knew you weren’t really the warm and fuzzy type, but you’re painting a really grim picture of your love life here. Help me out.”

“Can’t imagine _you_ have had very many partners either, if you always talk this much.” Hilbert said with a glare.

“Hilbert.” Eiffel said softly, cupping his hand against Hilbert’s cheek and looking into his grey eyes.

“I do not need your pity.” Hilbert spat. He pushed Eiffel’s hand away and turned around, his hands busy again zipping up his jumpsuit. “You think you want to know me, that you _can_ just because you know the child? You are _wrong_.” Eiffel flinched at how harsh his voice was. “Is no lost little boy buried somewhere under Alexander Hilbert and Elias Selberg. Is just me.” He finished pulling his coat back on and moved towards the door. “Is always just me.”

Eiffel caught his wrist. “You thought I was taking care of Dmitri because I feel bad for y _ou_?”

“Is obvious conclusion. Even Minkovski can see it.” Hilbert said, glancing back at Eiffel with a sneer.

“Yeah, well, you’re both seeing what you wanna see then. Why is it so hard for people to imagine that I just like kids and want to make sure nothing bad happens to them if I can prevent it?”

“Like you prevented anything bad happening to daughter?”

Eiffel felt like he’d been slapped. “Don’t- “

“No, is your turn for genuine.” Hilbert said. He turned away from the door and stared at Eiffel, his expression carefully controlled. “You are taking care of Dmitri because you think will alleviate guilt you feel.”

Eiffel squirmed under his gaze. “I… no! Maybe?... I don’t know.” It was Eiffel’s turn to look away. He scratched his neck awkwardly.

“Eiffel…” Hilbert said, his voice full of discomfort, “will never go away. Not being able to help people you love… not something you can fix.”

“That hasn’t stopped you from trying, though, has it. Perfecting Decima won’t bring back your sister, Hilbert.”

“And caring for Dmitri won’t change Anne. Or me.”

“I know.”

“As do I.”

They stood in silence for several moments, Eiffel turning to look out the window at the star. Still blue, still inscrutably blue.  “Why did you do this?”

“Why did I kiss you?”

“Yes. Was seducing me your plan to get me to let you keep sticking me full of needles and shit?”

Hilbert chuckled. “No. I did this because I wanted it.”

“What? The great Alexander Hilbert did something that didn’t align with some bigger plan?” Eiffel gasped in mock surprise.

Hilbert squared his shoulders and headed again for the door. “I see now it was foolish. Will leave you alone now. If you find button from coat- “

“No, come back here you asshole.” Eiffel moved to the door and closed it, preventing Hilbert from leaving. “I hate you, just for the record. But… I do think it’s almost criminal that nobody’s kissed you in over a quarter century.”

Hilbert raised his eyebrow, a small grin forming on his lips. “Oh?”

“Yeah. You have a very kissable neck.”

 “Then, perhaps…”

Eiffel rolled his eyes and moved forward to begin removing Hilbert’s coat again, more slowly this time. “Just shut up.”

 

Several rooms away, Dmitri was stretched out in a second sleeping bad Lovelace had rigged up in her room for the night, while Lovelace hummed and read a book of Hui’s Minkovski had found in the storage room. Just when she thought he’d fallen asleep, he mumbled something.

“Hera, what was that?”

“He, uh… he wants to know when his parents are coming back.” Hera said, her tone somewhere between discomfort and hilarity.

Lovelace laughed aloud. “Does he mean Eiffel and Hilbert?"

Hera asked Dmitri in Russian.

"Evidently, yes."

Lovelace laughed harder. "That’s funny. Imagine the two of them as a couple. Oh, god, I needed that.” She wiped her eyes. “Where are they, anyway? Not in Hilbert’s lab, I hope. I don't want to find out tomorrow morning that this was some kind of set up to get his virus research back on track.”

“Captain… I don’t want to, uh, spoil your fun, but they’re both in Officer Eiffel’s quarters. They went in there from the off-the-grid lab about an hour ago and Eiffel locked me out shortly after.”

Lovelace looked from the point on the wall where Hera’s voiced had been emanating, to Dmitri, and back again with an expression of resignation and mild disgust on her face. “Well, it’s his ass, I guess. Literally. Hera, tell Dmitri that they’ll get him in the morning if they don’t kill each other first. I can’t believe Eiffel's taste.”

Hera told Dmitri in Russian that Hilbert and Eiffel would meet him for breakfast, and that everything would be fine. He thanked her and closed his eyes to go to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m continuing to play fast and loose with the canon of the show so that things can happen in an order more suited to my purposes. If some of this makes no sense, that’s because I’m changing shit all over the place and forgot where it connected to other shit. Hopefully it’s still enjoyable to read. 
> 
> This went from "found family" to "angst fest" to "super dramatic and cliche" to "sappy as hell". So. Hope you enjoy.
> 
> edit: I commissioned my friend to do an art for this chapter so now that exists and aaaaaa i love it http://praggmatic.tumblr.com/post/171392780060/flat-colour-commission-for-lovelyleonard-its-a

“Good morning, Captain Lovelace! Commander Minkovski asked me to make sure you were awake, she’s coming in to see you in about ten minutes.”  Hera chirped.

“Good morning, Hera. What does Minkovski want?” Lovelace asked. She made no move to get out of her sleeping bag or even open her eyes.

“She’s making clothes for Dmitri. Says it’s ridiculous for him to be going around in a grown man’s coat.”

Lovelace cracked an eye open to glance at the second sleeping bag strung up across from hers. Dmitri was rubbing his eyes, his hair sticking up everywhere. Lovelace closed her eyes again with a small sigh. “Okay. Tell her I’m up and she can come in whenever.”

“Sure thing.”

Lovelace climbed out of her sleeping bag and pulled Dmitri out of his and led him into the bathroom to brush their teeth and so she could flatten his hair a bit. Her own hair she twisted into a knot on her head before she started washing her face. Dmitri brushed his teeth silently, not even complaining about Hilbert’s toothpaste substitute.

Minkovski knocked on the door to Lovelace’s quarters before letting herself in. “Morning, Lovelace. How was the kid? Did he keep you up?”

“No, he’s pretty well behaved.”

“Yeah, let’s see how long that lasts with Eiffel taking care of him.” Minkovski said dryly. She held out a bit of fabric in one hand and a box of pins in the other and gestured for Dmitri to come stand in front of her, which he did, looking from her to the material curiously.

“What’s that? Hera said something about clothes?” Lovelace asked, raising an eyebrow.

Minkovski was already helping Dmitri into what turned out to be a smaller version of the team jumpsuit, evidently made out of a full-sized jumpsuit. “I looked through the manifest in the store room. You’d think with a box full of matryoshka dolls and a cannon there’d be a crate with clothes better suited to a little boy but there wasn’t. I’m repurposing one of the suits from the last mission. Got it out of the same box your book came from.”

Lovelace looked over at Hui’s book which she’d been reading the night before and felt her stomach plummet uncomfortably. “Oh. So it’s Hui’s old suit.”

“Yeah.” Minkovski was pinning sections of fabric together. “It’s a work in progress, and I’m not the greatest at sewing by hand, but I needed something to do during my night rotation.” She looked up at the expression on Lovelace’s face and her own face crumpled in sympathy. “Lovelace… I didn’t even think… are you okay with me using Hui’s stuff?”

“It’s not like he’s using it anymore, is he?” Lovelace said bitterly. Minkovski looked stricken. “I’m sorry, I just meant… yeah, it’s okay. You’re right, Dmitri can’t go around in that coat.” She crouched down to admire Minkovski’s handiwork- it wasn’t quite finished and had pins holding the fabric together in several places, but it wasn’t bad and it did look an awful lot like their own full-size suits. “It’s good, Minkovski. He could be a member of the team.”

Minkovski smiled around the pins held in her teeth, and Lovelace smiled back. Dmitri looked from one to the other and giggled, poking at Minkovski’s hair as it floated free about the cabin.

“He’s kind of a sweet little boy, isn’t he?” Minkovski said as she pinned the last bit of fabric in place and put the rest of the pins into a box and pocketed them.

Lovelace gave him a small pat on the head. “He is, yeah. It’s hard to imagine him growing up to be Hilbert.”

“He won’t though, will he? He’ll grow up to be someone different.” Minkovski said thoughtfully, helping Dmitri out of the pin-covered fabric and back into the coat he’d been wearing. “Different environment, different people, different circumstances…”

“ _If_ he grows up at all. We still don’t know why the aliens did this or if they have further plans for him.”

Minkovski shot Lovelace a very serious look. “Don’t let Eiffel hear you talking like that.”

“Of course not, but we’ve gotta be thinking about it even if he won’t.” Lovelace elbowed her. “Do you have any theories?”

“Not really. Do you?” Minkovski asked, watching Dmitri wander over to the window. The blue light of the star gave his face an odd glow and reflected in his eyes.

“I don’t know. Part of me can’t help but feel like this is… a kind of opportunity for Hilbert. A second chance.”

Minkovski turned to look at Lovelace, who was also watching Dmitri. “I don’t think we know enough about the aliens to really assign them a motive like that.”

Lovelace shrugged. “No, we don’t. But it’s a nice thought.”

Minkovski was still looking at her. “So… when did you learn to sew?” Lovelace rapidly changed the subject.

“Oh.” Minkovski blushed slightly and clutched the small jumpsuit in her fist. “Uh, when I was young I did musical theater. But I don’t… dance well, so when I got to college… I got put in the costume department.” She rubbed her nose and shot Lovelace a look that plainly said she was expecting to get teased for this reveal.

“I wouldn’t have expected that, you seem pretty graceful to me.” Lovelace said seriously. Minkovski shrugged.

“Space has been good for my coordination, believe it or not.”

Lovelace laughed. “Well, if you ever decide you might be better at dancing in zero-g, I’d love to teach you some moves.”

Minkovski beamed. “I’d like that.”

 

Half an hour later found the entire crew and Dmitri sitting in the mess. Dmitri had launched himself at Eiffel the moment he’d entered the room and hadn’t let go of him throughout breakfast; he was now sitting on Eiffel’s lap drinking water while Eiffel held him one-handed so he could eat some eggs. Hilbert was seated across the table and kept glancing over at them. Minkovski was going over the plans for the day with the help of Hera, and Lovelace was watching the lot of them with an uncharacteristic fondness.

After a while, Minkovski finished explaining the repair timeline and they all lapsed into silence, drinking their coffee substitute. It was almost comfortable.

Until Lovelace cleared her throat and leaned forward to fix Eiffel with a playful look. “So… Officer Eiffel… Hera tells me Hilbert spent the night in your quarters?”

Minkovski and Hilbert’s heads whipped around to stare down the table so fast that Hilbert rubbed his neck like he’d hurt it.

Eiffel spluttered. “Hera!” He finally said in a scandalized tone.

“Eiffel?” Hera said, with a very unconvincing show of innocence.

“Hilbert!” Minkovski said, in the same scandalized tone. Hilbert shifted uncomfortably under her glare.

“Minkovski?” Eiffel said, raising an eyebrow at her with an expression that very clearly said _not you too_.

“Lovelace!” Lovelace exclaimed, grinning at Eiffel, who rolled his eyes at her, and relaxed his shoulders.

“Hilbert slept in my quarters the night before as well, it’s not a big deal.”

Everyone looked at Hilbert again. He nodded. “True. Dmitri would not go to sleep.”

“Uh-huh. So this is a co-parenting thing after all.” Lovelace said.

Both Eiffel and Hilbert looked confused. “What?” Hilbert said after several seconds.

“Dmitri thinks you’re his parents.” Lovelace said, turning back to her food.

“But- no, Dmitri remembers parents. I talked to him about them.” Hilbert said with a frown. He turned to look at Dmitri and opened his mouth, then closed it again with a shake of his head. “I will speak to him about it later.”

Lovelace opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by Hera.

“Guys? We may have a problem.”

 

There was a ship coming. An honest-to-god ship. They’d introduced themselves as the Urania over a long-range channel and announced they’d be there in the next day or so.

“You think they’re coming to rescue us?” Eiffel asked anxiously, bouncing a little and still holding Dmitri.

“I don’t know.” Minkovski answered. She was pacing the comms room where the crew was now gathered. “I sent out some distress calls when you were missing, Eiffel, but we never got any response. But that’s not the only thing. Cutter’s call.” 

All the blood drained from Eiffel’s face. He turned to Hilbert and Lovelace. “He knows you’re not dead and he knows you’re here, Lovelace. And he knows we tried to lie about that.”

“ _And_ he thinks I’m doing my job poorly, remember?” Hera grumbled.

“So, what? You think they’re coming up here to kills us in person instead of remotely?” Lovelace asked.

“I don’t know!” Minkovski ran a hand through her hair. “I just don’t think it’s going to be as easy to leave as saying to them ‘we’re ready to go now’. Especially not with…” She glanced at Dmitri.

Hilbert crossed his arms. “We will have to hide him.”

Minkovski stopped her pacing. “I… are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Eiffel shook his head. “I don’t know if we want to do anything to get on their bad side, whoever they turn out to be. If we want to get out of here-“

“Eiffel. Minkovski.” Lovelace said. “You’re not seriously advocating compliance with these people?”

“No, but… are you _seriously_ siding with _Hilbert_?” Minkovski said incredulously.

“I’m just going to derail this argument before it gets started by pointing out there’s nowhere on the station you can put Dmitri where I can’t see him, which means there’s nowhere on the station you can put Dmitri where somebody can’t force me to track him down.” Hera cut in. Lovelace frowned.

“What about the off-the-grid lab?” Eiffel objected.

“The one with the giant spiders which we plugged back into Hera’s sensors so we could search the databanks?” Minkovski reminded him.

Eiffel shrugged helplessly, looking from Minkovski to Hilbert.

Hilbert cleared his throat. “I may have another suggestion.” he said stiffly.

 

It took all of two seconds for Lovelace to force Hilbert to step over the threshold into the room marked “open only when you are alone”. Eiffel and Minkovski were monitoring the comms for the arrival of the ship and finishing the last of the repairs to filtration, respectively. Dmitri was floating behind Hilbert, watching the pair of adults curiously as they talked.

 “Listen to me, you despicable waste of a soul. That’s not how you react to this. Humanity 101: when someone lies to you, when someone betrays you, when they leave you to die alone, in the cold, you DO NOT FIND IT PERFECTLY EQUITABLE. YOU GET ANGRY, AND YOU DO WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO IN ORDER TO SHOW THEM THAT THEY HAVE MADE THE WORST MISTAKE OF THEIR LIVES. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU HAVE TO GIVE UP, WHO YOU HAVE TO HURT, HOW FAR YOU HAVE TO GO-“

“Isabel. Please stop.” Hilbert cut her off as Dmitri started to cry. After a moment’s hesitation, he picked the boy up and held him tightly, wishing that he’d listened to Eiffel when he’d insisted that Dmitri should stay in the comms room with him until Hilbert and Lovelace had finished their investigation and reported back. Eiffel was much, much better at soothing this child than he was, but he pet Dmitri’s hair nonetheless and shushed him softly, shooting Lovelace a look as he did so. “Are you even listening to yourself?”

“Goddamnit.” She muttered to herself, rubbing her temples. “Well, anyway... is this really a suitable place to hide a kid?”

Hilbert shrugged. “We have no alternative. Nobody needs to know what this room is for. _Especially_ Eiffel. I will dismantle the… chair. Dmitri will be safe in here until we can determine how to get back to Earth.” Hilbert looked down at Dmitri who was still crying into his shoulder and frowned.

“Sorry I made him cry, doc.”

“He will be fine.” Hilbert said, before murmuring to Dmitri. “ _I have to do some work, will you go with Lovelace? She’ll take you back up to see Eiffel_.”

“ _Why can’t you take me?”_

_“I have to get started on my work right now.”_

_“Why was she yelling at you?”_

_“It’s very hard to explain. She won’t do it again, I promise_.” Hilbert looked up at Lovelace. “You promise you will not yell again, yes?”

“Yeah, I promise. Tell Dmitri I’m sorry for scaring him.”

“ _She says she is sorry if she frightened you.”_

_“I wasn’t frightened. I’m very brave.”_

Hilbert laughed. “ _Yes, you are_.” He set Dmitri down. “Lovelace, please take Dmitri back to the comms room with Eiffel. I am going to my lab to get supplies.”

Lovelace looked at him for a long, long moment, then nodded. She stuck out a hand and took Dmitri’s and the two of them headed out of the room. 

 

They all met back in the mess again that evening. According to the transmissions Eiffel had been receiving, the Urania would arrive around noon the next day. Hilbert had the secret room all prepared, Lovelace had gone to help Minkovski with filtration repairs and they’d finished just before dinner. Everyone was very tense.

“Look.” Minkovski said after ten minutes of silence while everyone ate. “We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but we’ve weathered some pretty bad things. We can get through whatever comes next, as well.”

“Good pep talk, Commander.” Hera said reassuringly. “I agree. It’s not like anything could get any worse.”

 

Eiffel was finishing up giving Dmitri a bath when Minkovski knocked on his door that evening. “I brought you something.” She said, holding out the small jumpsuit. Eiffel grinned very widely and took it from her. 

“Oh my god, Minkowski, that’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.” He gestured to Dmitri to finish drying off and handed him the outfit, beaming. Dmitri pulled it on with minimal help from Eiffel and began to giggle before bouncing around the room.

“He likes it.” Minkovski said, beaming. Eiffel nodded and beamed back.

“I think so. Thanks so much.”

There was another knock on the door and Hilbert came in. “Ah. Commander. Was not expecting you to be here. I can come back.”

“That’s alright, Hilbert, I was just stopping by to give Dmitri the jumpsuit I made for him.”

“Wait, you _made_ this?!” Eiffel exclaimed. “That’s awesome! I didn’t know you could sew.”

“I have many hidden talents.” Minkovski said dryly.

“May I ask what you made it from?” Hilbert asked.

“From one of the previous crew’s jumpsuits, it wasn’t hard.”

“I see.” Hilbert’s expression tightened slightly, but at that moment Dmitri launched himself at Hilbert for a hug and he threw his arms out to catch him, smiling. Dmitri began to babble excitedly in Russian.

“He says thank you, he loves the jumpsuit, is glad that he matches the rest of us.” Hilbert said, and Minkovski beamed again.

“Well, tell him I say you’re welcome.”

“Tell him yourself. Russian word is ‘pozhaluysta’.”

“Pozhaluysta, Dmitri.” Minkovski said as she ruffled his hair. “You all have a good night.” She cast a significant look at Eiffel as she left the room.

Hilbert let go of Dmitri and he continued bouncing around the room, looking out the window, looking through Eiffel’s mess, spinning in his new clothes in the zero-g. Hilbert watched him, chuckling.

“He considers himself very lucky to be in space with such nice people.” Hilbert said softly.

Eiffel snorted, but his tone was fond. “Well, I’m glad _somebody_ is having the Star Trek adventure _I_ thought I signed up for.”  He sighed. “I don’t wanna send him to stay in a strange part of the ship for who knows how long.”

Hilbert reached out hesitantly and laid a hand on his shoulder. When Eiffel didn’t pull away or look at him oddly, he moved closer and pulled Eiffel into a tentative embrace.

“It is necessary. I don’t know what these people want but if they are from Goddard they will not be happy there is alien onboard.”

“I know, I know. I just…”

“You’ve grown attached.”

“Minkovski warned me not to but I did anyway.”

“Is only natural.” Eiffel sighed and gave Hilbert a brief kiss on the cheek, and Hilbert tried not to blush.

 

When Minkovski got back to her cabin, Lovelace was there, leaning against the doorframe and whistling to herself. “Captain.” Minkovski greeted her, inviting her into the cabin.

“What’s up?” Minkovski asked as she started to take her hair down and look around for her mp3 player and headphones.

‘I was just wondering if there was something you weren’t telling everyone.” Lovelace said casually. Minkovski bristled.

“Are you accusing me of lying about something specifically, or just more generally of keeping secrets? Because that’s always been your and Hilbert’s MO, not mine.”

“No. I just thought you seemed stressed.”

Minkovski laughed harshly. “Of course I’m stressed! We might have the opportunity to go home soon, and I really, really want to go home. I miss my husband, my dogs, and being able to take a walk and actually feel my feet on the ground. I miss the most pressing technical emergency in my life being that my car’s tire pressure wouldn’t stay constant.” She laughed again. “And I know it’s too much to hope that the Urania people will let us just… get on board and take off! They’re going to have questions about Hilbert’s child clone, and I don’t have answers for them. What I do have is a space station that’s continuing to fall apart despite our repairs and a crew full of exhausted, traumatized people.”

Lovelace nodded slowly. “Well, they can’t make us stay up here very long if the station’s falling apart. But then again, these are the same people who abandoned me and Selberg to die and sent my ship all the way back out here.”

Minkovski sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Exactly.”

Lovelace grabbed Minkovski’s mp3 player from the air beside her and flicked through it, settling on a song before handing it back to her. Minkovski looked up and raised an eyebrow.

“Jazz?”

“Hey, this is your mp3 player, not mine. And besides. It’s good for dancing.” Lovelace held out a hand. “C’mon, there’s nothing you can do right now. Something’s gonna happen tomorrow, and it might be something bad. But it’s not tomorrow yet.”

Minkovski gave Lovelace a small smile. She took her hand, and Lovelace led through through the steps of an awkward, out-of-time swing dance.

 

The next morning, after Eiffel had gotten Dmitri breakfast, he, the boy, and Hilbert returned to Eiffel’s quarters and Eiffel spent a good ten minutes rooting through a box of his stuff before pulling out a teddy bear and an old Game Boy Color. Hilbert raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything as the three of them headed to the room in engineering.

“ _Dmitri, you need to stay here. We will be back to get you later, but right now, it is very important that you stay in this room. Do you understand?”_ Hilbert said seriously, crouching down to Dmitri’s eye level. Dmitri looked from Hilbert to Eiffel, frowning, and nodded.

“These are for you.” Eiffel said, holding out the bear and the Game Boy. “Keep an eye on them for me, okay?”

Hilbert translated and then flicked on the Game Boy. Dmitri took it curiously. "I don't want him to get bored or lonely." Eiffel told Hilbert, who nodded. 

Eiffel looked around the room, completely empty except for a panel in the center of the room that looked like it used to have some mechanical device connected to it. It was kind of a grim place for a kid to stay for any amount of time, and Eiffel desperately didn’t want to leave Dmitri there alone. Hilbert gave him a light tug on the sleeve, moving towards the door, but Eiffel didn’t move.

“Hilbert… how do you say ‘I love you’ in Russian?”

Hilbert blinked at him for several seconds before responding. “Ya lyublyu tebya.” He said, very quietly. Eiffel nodded, then moved forward and scooped Dmitri up in a tight hug.

“Ya lyublyu tebya, Dmitri.” Eiffel said, ruffling Dmitri’s hair as he set him down again. Dmitri smiled at him.

“Ya tozhe.” Dmitri replied. He waved at the adults as they left the room, turning back to the Game Boy.

 

The three SI-5 agents who showed up immediately took over the station’s functions and command. Minkovski’s initial relief that they’d brought supplies to reinforce the parts of the Hephaestus that still needed work was cancelled out by their leader’s refusal to share any information with her and his insistence on sending her people out on dangerous unnecessary spacewalks. Lovelace and Eiffel followed Kepler’s orders with obviously reluctance but the two he’d brought with him, Jacobi and Maxwell, seemed to like and trust him, and that made Minkovski distrust them.

And then there was Hilbert. Cutter must have passed along the information that Hilbert had tried and failed to mutiny and that they were keeping him locked up in the observation deck, because Kepler was confused and irritated to discover he’d been given back autonomy of movement and allowed to return to his quarters. He was also very curious about Hilbert’s work. Maxwell was getting regular reports from Hera about Hilbert’s movements around the station and the nature of his work.

Despite this, three days after the arrival of the Urania, Hilbert finished up the DNA comparison on himself and Dmitri.

“Eiffel, meet me in the lab.” Hilbert’s voice came urgently over the comm as Eiffel was finishing up another too-long day of listening for transmissions. Eiffel rubbed his eyes and groaned, stretching before he left the comms room.

“What’s up, doc?” Eiffel said as he entered the lab. Hilbert gestured for him to close the door behind him, which he did.

“I have finished the DNA sequence.” Hilbert announced from where he was leaning against his work station. He gestured to a number of tubes and sheets of paper in front of him.

Eiffel looked over Hilbert’s shoulder at the contents of the desk. “And what did you find?”

Hilbert opened and closed his mouth several times, his brow furrowed.

“Earth to Herbert West. _What did you find_? Don’t tell me you think your supervirus can bring people back from the dead, or something.”

“Dmitri does have the same sort of radiation markers in his DNA as I do.” Hilbert said in a low voice.

Eiffel frowned. “I’m guessing that’s bad?”

“No, is… unexpected. Not the _exact_ same radiation markers. If he is a clone, I would have expected to either find exact same markers, or none at all.”

Eiffel shrugged. “Well, you said the star gave off an unusual radiation, and if the star made Dmitri then that would make sense.”

Hilbert shook his head. “You would think so, but no. Not with the way we as a society understand cloning.”

“Huh. So the aliens have some different kind of cloning tech than we do?”

“Essentially. I still do not understand what they hoped to accomplish by doing this, but studying DNA more closely may reveal answers. And in either case, will definitely be helpful for Decima research.”

Eiffel looked at him coolly. “So does this mean you’re done using me as a patient zero?”

“I’d like to ask the same question.” Came Kepler’s voice from behind them. Eiffel turned around to find him leaning against the doorframe with his arms cross, smiling pleasantly at them both. Eiffel felt Hilbert tense up beside him.

Colonel. What’s up?” Eiffel asked, trying to smile back at Kepler and managing only a weak grin.

“Oh, not much, Officer Eiffel. My AI specialist let me know that the two of you were down here together and I thought I’d check and make sure there weren’t any more breaches of ethics happening courtesy of the good doctor here.” Kepler gestured in Hilbert’s direction.

Hilbert cleared his throat. “We are running a periodic check-up to ensure samples in Officer Eiffel do not cause him any harm.”

“From what I’ve heard you’re a little late for that.” Kepler growled. “I understand you killed the entire previous crew of the Hephaestus.”

“I did not kill Fisher, he died in a spacewalk.”

“But you did infect him with your pet virus.” Kepler said loudly, clenching his fists. “You put lives at risk once before and you’re doing it again here with Eiffel.”

“The potential to save lives-“

“Could you two maybe stop?” Eiffel said meekly, moving to stand between the two men, who had been inching towards each other and straightening up, preparing to fight. “It really was just a checkup, nobody’s in trouble right now, everything’s fine.”

“Good. If everything’s fine, you won’t mind me staying to watch the rest of the proceedings.” Kepler said smugly. Eiffel looked at Hilbert, who raised his eyebrows significantly and began to pull out a blood pressure monitor, covering up the DNA test results with a good show of nonchalance.

“Very well, Officer Eiffel, if I could have your arm…”

 

Hilbert, Eiffel, Lovelace, and Minkovski switched off visiting Dmitri, bringing him food, keeping him company, as Kepler continued his bid for absolute control on board the Hephaestus. It was difficult without being able to coordinate their schedules through Hera, but they were making it work. Hilbert was apparently progressing in his Decima research without needing to observe the virus at all, just from the DNA sequence he now had of Dmitri, but Kepler was keeping such a close eye on him he’d had to limit his work to the occasional five minutes snuck here and there. Eiffel was frequently pulling twelve hour shifts in the comms room. Minkovski and Lovelace were reinforcing parts of the Hephaestus with equipment from the Urania. Everyone was kept so busy with Kepler’s demands that Eiffel was beginning to feel bad for the small boy they were keeping all but locked up, but the only time he’d been able to talk to Hilbert about it Hilbert had insisted it was necessary.

“You do not know SI-5 people like I do. Dmitri _will_ be in danger if they know of his existence.” Hilbert muttered urgently on Hilbert’s way into the room and Eiffel’s way out. “Please trust me. We do not want Kepler finding out about Dmitri.”

Eiffel shot a look at the boy, who was playing with his Game Boy and twirling his hair, which had gotten rather long in the weeks since he’d been onboard, between his fingers. “You’re probably right, but how much longer are we gonna keep him hidden in here? This isn’t a V.C. Andrews book, we can’t just keep him here forever.”

“I do not know who V.C. Andrews is and I don’t care, truth is we must keep him here until we have control of the Urania.”

“And Minkovski and Lovelace are working on that, yeah. I got it.” Eiffel sighed. He exchanged a commiserating look with Hilbert and waved at Dmitri as he left the room.

Eiffel thought about Hilbert with growing frustration all the way back to the comms room. They'd spent two nights together, and during one of them they'd had sex, and Eiffel wasn't sure what he was supposed to be doing or feeling now. Hilbert had been treating him less formally, sure, but certainly not as though he had any romantic interest in him and he had shot down Lovelace's hints about them being a couple. Which Eiffel was fine with! Really, it would be weird to think of them as dating in the midst of everything that was going on. Stealing a moment alone together here and there while they worked a dangerous job in the cold, dark loneliness of space was one thing, actually committing to someone was another.

And he loved Dmitri, truly he did, but that didn't mean he owed Hilbert anything. Hilbert had been adamant that he thought Eiffel's desire to protect the boy was pity for Hilbert, and Eiffel didn't need that level of complicated. 

These thoughts took Eiffel until about 0100 to exhaust, at which point his night rotation in the comms room got incredibly boring and, dare he say it, lonely. “Hera, you there?”

“Yes, Eiffel.” Hera responded with a sigh.

“How’ve you been? Maxwell isn’t poking around in your head too much, is she?”

“Well, I mean… she can force me to tell her anything I see or hear, and she’s not shy about using that power, but she has fixed a lot of buggy systems and significantly sped up my processing speeds, so… it’s kind of a mixed bag.”

“I hear you.” Eiffel said sympathetically. “I don’t like these people but they are very good at their job. I think Kepler honest-to-god scared Hilbert last week, which, on the one hand it was uncomfortable to be in the same room for that, but on  the other hand props to him for scaring our resident scary dude.”

“Hmm.” Hera said in an unconvinced tone. “You don’t sound all that enthused about it.”

“I’m not, really. I think Hilbert’s a lot more vulnerable than he lets on and I think Kepler can smell it.”

“You think he’s dangerous?” Hera asked.

“Like a shark smelling blood.” Eiffel nodded. “I can’t help but think we need a Quint rather than a Hooper to deal with him.”

Hera was silent for a moment. “I’ve lost the plot here. What are we talking about?”

“Jaws.” Eiffel said grimly. Hera hummed again. “What’s Hilbert doing right now, anyway?”

“He’s in engineering.” Hera told Eiffel. Eiffel nodded.

“And Kepler?”

“Back on the Urania.”

“Good.”

 

“Hi, Eiffel!” Dmitri said, jumping into Eiffel’s arms when he next entered the room several days later.

“Hi, Mitya. How’ve you been?” Eiffel asked, kissing the top of his head.

“Papa was here!” Dmitri answered with a smile. “Papa’s… back later.”

“And I see your papa’s been teaching you some English, huh? That’s good.”

“Papa says Mitya is very smart.” Dmitri said proudly.

Eiffel squeezed the boy gently and set him down again. “Well, he is his father’s son. Your papa is very smart, too.”

“Can we go?” Dmitri asked, pointing at the door. Eiffel shook his head.

“No, sorry baby.”

Dmitri pouted. “Wanna go.”

“I know.” Eiffel said, feeling his heart break a little at the expression on his face. “Soon.” He thought of the conversation he’d had with Lovelace earlier in the day. “Soon.”

 

After a catastrophe during which Minkovski broke her arm and almost asphyxiated, and Hilbert managed to get her connected to her husband’s office only to learn he thought she was dead, Lovelace approached Eiffel to bring him into the loop. She and Minkovski had a plan to steal the Urania, and they were ready to move with it soon. The next solar storm was happening just around the corner. Everyone expected the star to try to talk to them again. Kepler, Maxwell, and Jacobi would be distracted and distractible during that time, so that was when they’d take the ship. Eiffel didn’t know what the others would be doing but his job was to grab Dmitri and fucking sprint to the Urania.  

As always, things didn’t go according to plan.

The morning before the contact event, according to the schedule they’d established, Hilbert was just getting ready to leave Dmitri’s room. Lovelace would take Dmitri breakfast later when she got done with the work she was doing with Jacobi, but for the next two hours, Dmitri would be on his own. It was during this time that Hera woke Eiffel shouting that Kepler was headed to engineering.

“ _What?!_ How the hell did-“

“I told them, Eiffel, I had to! Kepler couldn’t find Hilbert earlier and he had Maxwell pull up a log of everywhere he’s been going for the last couple weeks to try and establish a pattern and obviously they noticed he always goes to engineering and then disappears off my sensors!”

“Okay. Am I gonna need a gun?” Eiffel said determinedly, pulling his jumpsuit on.

“Eiffel, I don’t think-“

“ _Am I gonna need a gun?_ Does _Kepler_ have a gun?”

“…yes, Kepler has a gun.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Eiffel snarled, sprinting out of his cabin and heading for the armory.

He grabbed a handgun and high-tailed it back to engineering where he found Kepler standing with his weapon in the doorway to Dmitri’s room, and Hilbert holding Dmitri, backing further into the room to get away from him.

“Colonel, I beg of you-“

“I don’t need to hear your groveling, don’t waste the oxygen. Throw the boy across to me and maybe I won’t shoot you.” Kepler said, sounding almost like he was enjoying himself.

Hilbert responded heatedly. “Absolutely not.” 

“Doctor.” There was a click as Kepler turned the safety off on his gun. “I’m not going to ask you twice. I don’t care whether you live or die, and honestly I think I’d be doing a service to humanity by shooting you in the head.” Eiffel inched forward, trying to stay out of view of Dmitri and Hilbert while lining up to take a shot at Kepler if he needed to. “Now, are we gonna do this the easy way, or the hard way?”

Eiffel cocked his own gun and cleared his throat. “I don’t know, Kepler, which do you want?” He shouted, cursing internally at how high his voice had gotten. Kepler jerked his head towards Eiffel, bringing the gun with him. “Step out of the doorway and let Hilbert and Dmitri through.”

Kepler started to laugh. “Eiffel, come on! I guarantee that you don’t fully understand this situation, even if you have been playing daddy to this kid for the last month. Oh, yeah, we know all about that, you didn’t think I didn’t know about this room, did you?” He said off of Eiffel’s confused look. “You're not really going to defend Hilbert, who's been experimenting on you, just because he's holding an alien kid? Let me handle this."

“I don’t think so.” Eiffel said. He was breathing very fast but his hands were perfectly steady. “Get out of the way.”

“What if I don’t? Are you really gonna shoot me? Do you really think you have that in you?”

“I don’t know, but we’re gonna find out real soon.” Eiffel said, trying to get his voice to stop shaking. “Now get. Out. Of. The. Way.” Kepler looked at him for a moment and then moved to the side, away from the doorway. Eiffel kept his gun pointed at him.

“Eiffel?” Dmitri said in a timid voice. Eiffel glanced at him and saw him cling more tightly to Hilbert. He tried to smile at the boy.

“It’ll all be okay.” Eiffel said in his most reassuring voice. “Hilbert, come on.”

Hilbert moved forward out of the room, edging towards Eiffel, and then Dmitri started to cry. In the brief moment where Hilbert was distracted, Kepler lunged forward and shot.

Eiffel managed to pull Hilbert partially out of the way- the bullet hit him in the arm that wasn’t carrying Dmitri and he bit down on his lip to stop from screaming. Kepler grabbed Dmitri by his wrist and pulled him away from Hilbert. Dmitri continued to cry. Eiffel could feel the panic that had been threatening him start to overtake him.

“Are you kidding me, Kepler!” Eiffel screamed, moving forward and brandishing the gun.

“Are you sure you can hit me without hitting the kid?” Kepler taunted, positioning Dmitri in his arms so he made a fairly good shield. “I wouldn’t take that risk if I were you.”

“Eiffel, shoot him.” Hilbert moaned, pressing his hand to the wound on his arm. Dmitri continued to cry and squirm against Kepler’s grasp.

“’Eiffel, shoot him’.” Kepler repeated in a mocking imitation of Hilbert’s voice. “I don’t think so.” He raised his own gun again, taking aim at Eiffel’s chest.

Hilbert swore and grabbed Eiffel’s gun.

“Hilbert no!” Eiffel shouted, but it was too late. He felt like what happened next occurred in slow motion. Hilbert had the gun, Hilbert was aiming the gun, Hilbert's hands were shaking as he aimed the gun at Kepler who was holding Dmitri. Hilbert fired the gun and winced as the recoil traveled through his injured arm. Kepler collapsed. The bullet had hit him right between the eyes.

“Oh thank god, Dmitri.” Eiffel gasped, letting go of Hilbert and rushing forward to grab the boy and pull him into a crushing hug, closing his eyes and forcing himself to breathe normally.

Dmitri sobbed into Eiffel’s chest. “Eiffel? Papa?”

“It’s alright, you’re alright, we’re alright.” Eiffel hushed him, petting his hair.

“Eiffel…” Hilbert’s voice choked out, and Eiffel turned around, remembering Hilbert. He was doubled over and clutching his arm. The gun was drifting away from them. 

“Oh shit, Hilbert, are you gonna be okay? That’s a lot of blood. Hera! Hera, get Minkovski and send her down to the lab!” Eiffel ran to Hilbert, who’s eyes were closed and who was gritting his teeth.

“It will be fine but yes, we should go to lab. I thought I heard Dmitri’s wrist break when Kepler,” Hilbert spat his name, “grabbed him.”

The three set off, Hilbert leaning on Eiffel, who started up a stream of berating as they went.

“That was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, and that includes all the Decima shit.” Eiffel said in a furious undertone. “You’re not even trained to be handling firearms. That was entirely luck that you hit Kepler and not Dmitri. Also, this isn’t the fucking wild west. We don’t just… just… _kill people_.”

“You would have preferred I let him take Dmitri?” Hilbert snarled. “Or _shoot you?_ ”

“No, of course not but- oh my god, Hilbert.” Eiffel said as Hilbert stumbled in the hallway and collapsed. “Hera where are the others?!”

“They’re on their way, Eiffel.” Hera said. “They’ll be here in-“

“Eiffel! What the hell happened?” Minkovski demanded, rounding the corner and bending down to grab Hilbert and carry him into the lab.

“Kepler found Dmitri. Hilbert was there, Kepler shot him, and Hilbert shot Kepler.” Eiffel summarized. “He said he should be okay but then he just collapsed.”

“Hera!” Minkovski demanded, pulling her hair back and tying it up with a ponytail from her wrist. “Where does Hilbert keep his needles and stitches?”

 

Three hours later, Hera had walked Minkovski through taking the bullet out of Hilbert’s arm, sewing it back up, drawing her own blood and transfusing it to Hilbert, and setting Dmitri’s broken wrist. Lovelace had confined Jacobi and Maxwell to the observation deck, and Eiffel had gotten Kepler into a body bag and cleaned up engineering.

Eiffel returned to the lab to see Hilbert and Dmitri as soon as he’d finished and found Dmitri sitting cross legged on Hilbert’s bed, Hilbert’s good arm around him, the two of them chattering away.

“Hey, guys. How are you both?”

“Dmitri’s wrist is healing at a normal human rate.” Hilbert said matter-of-factly. Eiffel raised his eyebrows.

“And you? How are you doing, doc?”

Hilbert shrugged, then winced. “Acceptable.”

“Sure you are.” Eiffel said, leaning over the bed to rearrange the straps holding Hilbert down. Hilbert glared at him.

“Do not, ah, ‘mother hen’ me, Eiffel.”

“Hey, your two choices are mother henning or continuing to shout about how goddamn stupid it was of you to take that shot.”

Hilbert let out a long sigh. “In that case I will tolerate your hovering.”

“Damn right you will.” Eiffel said, sitting down on the bed and ruffling Dmitri’s hair. Dmitri smiled and scooted towards him to give Eiffel a hug. Eiffel held him for a moment, trying not to think about how thankful he was that Dmitri was alive and alright because he was _not_ going to cry in front of Hilbert, damnit.

“I’m hungry, Eiffel.” Dmitri whined after a while.

“Of course you are. You didn’t eat breakfast yet today, did you?”

Dmitri shook his head.

Eiffel looked up at Hilbert, who gave him a tired half-smile and gestured to him to go.

“You want me to bring you anything?”

Hilbert shook his head, winced then said, “Actually, real coffee from the Urania’s supplies would be nice. Now they cannot hoard it for themselves.”

“You aren’t gonna sleep.” Eiffel protested.

“Eiffel.” Hilbert growled warningly.

“You want me to go back to the nagging about gun safety?” Eiffel said, throwing his hands in the air. “Because I will. Guns aren’t toys, Hilbert! You haven’t been trained to-“

“Do you honestly think I would have shot Kepler if I hadn’t been sure I could hit? Just because I do not have American military training does not mean I have never used gun!” Hilbert glared, then sighed. "I would not let him shoot you." 

“Yeah yeah, you picked it up in the KGB, is that it?” Eiffel grumbled, pointedly ignoring the slight flutter in his stomach at Hilbert's last words. Hilbert raised an eyebrow. Dmitri tugged on his hand. “Ooookay, we’re gonna talk about this later.”

Hilbert rolled his eyes and glared as Eiffel let Dmitri drag him out of the room, but Eiffel could have sworn that he smiled fondly in their direction as they left.

 

“Eiffel, ty lyubish’ Papa?” Dmitri asked in the middle of their very late breakfast. Eiffel spat out the first real coffee he’d had in several years and grumbled as he dabbed it up with a napkin.

“That’s uh… I don’t know, Mitya.” Eiffel responded after a while. It was the truth. He had no idea how he felt about Hilbert. He definitely didn’t _hate_ him, but he didn’t think he’d ever forgive him for Decima. He’d put a virus into people that had killed them, and then had the gall to act like Eiffel was being unreasonable for getting angry over having it inside him. And he’d killed Kepler. But he’d also… killed Kepler. Eiffel didn’t like feeling conflicted over whether killing someone, that specific someone, was a good thing.

He did like Hilbert, like, as a person, maybe. He was kind of funny, and he’d been almost… sweet since Dmitri had come on board. And they’d slept together and that had been pretty great. Hilbert had been changing recently, that definitely wasn’t wishful thinking if the others had noticed it, too, right? They’d let him move back to his cabin. They’d given him access to his lab again. If Lovelace and Minkovski trusted Hilbert maybe it was okay that Eiffel trusted him as well. But it was one thing to say you liked Star Wars and Star Trek equally and another thing to admit you’d never watched Star Wars in Ernst Rister order and that your favorite of the Star Trek movies was The Final Frontier.

“Papa lyubit tebya.” Dmitri said, turning back to his food.

“You think so, huh?” Eiffel said, taking another tentative sip of his coffee.

Dmitri nodded very seriously. “Yes.”

_I hope so, kiddo_ , Eiffel thought. _I sure hope so._  

 

Eiffel and Dmitri were returning to the lab with coffee for Hilbert when the whole station shook and lights started flashing and alarms started going off. Eiffel dropped the coffee and it hit a railing, spilling open and splatting all over the clean white of the wall. Dmitri shrieked but didn’t crash into anything, and Eiffel swore and looked up and down the corridor. “Hera, what’s going on?”

“The contact event, Eiffel. We’re experiencing a solar storm.” Eiffel swore again. “Commander Minkovski needs your help in the observation deck.”

“Okay. Dmitri, go back to the lab with Papa.” Eiffel said, bending down to talk to the boy. “I’ll be back soon.”

“No, with you.” Dmitri demanded, gripping Eiffel’s hand tighter.

“Dmitri, Hilbert’s gonna be worried and-“ Eiffel closed his mouth abruptly as he saw Hilbert making his way up the hallway towards them, his jaw set and his arm in a sling. “Well, nevermind, here he comes.”

“You spilled my coffee.” Hilbert observed.

“Yeah, bigger fish right now, doc.” He grinned, glad to see him. "Come on." 

 

The station continued to shake as the trio headed to the observation deck. Eiffel was glad he hadn’t put his gun away in case he needed to gently (or not so gently) threaten Jacobi or Maxwell.

When they got there it was to find Jacobi and Minkovski shouting at each other, Maxwell watching with a bored expression.

“-clearly don’t know what’s going on or how to handle it, so tell me again how it was such a good idea to _murder our boss_!” Jacobi yelled.

“If he hadn’t been waving a gun at my people maybe we wouldn’t have had to! Kepler’s been a loose canon the entire time he’s been up here, you can stop kissing his ass now, it won’t help you!”

“You’re all crazy and you’re all going to die if you don’t listen to me. This contact event is _why we came up here_. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen, because Kepler didn’t share that intel with me and now he’s dead. Let me and Maxwell loose or-“

“Or what? You’ll blow us up? I can guarantee you, that won’t be happening any time soon. Nobody else is going to die while I’m in charge here, and like it or not, I _am_ in charge here now.”

“Fuck you.” Jacobi said, and spat at Minkovski.

At that moment, Lovelace entered the room, and a sound started up, a high-pitched whine, growing in volume.

“Where’s that coming from?” Hera asked.

“Funny. I was just about to ask you the same question.” Lovelace said. “Minkovski, sitrep?”

“The stellar storm’s getting worse. The station’s stable, but who knows how long that’s gonna last. The goon squad here is trying to convince me to let them loose because I don’t know what’s going on, but Jacobi admitted he doesn’t either so I see no reason why I should.”

Eiffel chuckled, glancing at Hilbert and Dmitri, then doing a double-take. Dmitri’s hands were glowing. He looked at Lovelace, about to ask her if she’d noticed, and saw her hands were glowing, too.

“Uh, guys? What’s going on with Lovelace and Dmitri?” Eiffel asked in a hesitant voice, then covered his ears with a wince as the background whine swelled to a roar. Everyone else covered their ears as well, except Lovelace and Dmitri, who were engulfed in a blue light. Eiffel yelped and jumped behind Hilbert.

Then the sound stopped, and Lovelace floated towards Dmitri and picked him up.

“Uh… Lovelace?” Minkovski said lowering her hands from her ears and stepping forward. “Are you okay?”

“Lovelace is not here. We are here.” Her voice echoed weirdly and joined with Dmitri’s much smaller, much higher-pitched voice.

Minkovski took another step forward. Eiffel peeked around Hilbert’s shoulder and saw Hilbert roll his eyes at him. “What do you mean, ‘not here’?”

“We mean, please leave a message after the tone.”

“What the hell does _that_ mean?!” Jacobi shouted, kicking his legs and trying to pull free of the chains holding him down.

Minkovski glared at him. “I think it means they’ll be back later but who knows. I mean, Eiffel probably knows. Eiffel!” She shouted.

Eiffel swallowed heavily. Hilbert took his hand. “I, uh, yeah, that would be my guess about meaning as well.” Eiffel’s voice came out high and squeaky.

Minkovski nodded and turned back to Lovelace. “Great. So, _you’re_ the contact event?”

“We are.”

“And uh… what do you want?”

“We want the speaker.”

Minkovski looked at Eiffel again. “Do they mean you?”

“Probably.” Hilbert said, looking sideways at Eiffel, his expression one of concern.

“We will talk to the speaker.”

“He is fine where he is, no?” Hilbert called to Lovelace and Dmitri. He looked like he was preparing for a fight, his grip on Eiffel's hand tightening, and Eiffel felt warm and comfortable for a moment in a way he'd never expected to feel about Hilbert. Eiffel shook his head.

“Nah, Hilbert it’s… it’s okay.” He gave Hilbert’s hand a squeeze and dropped it, moving forward on trembling legs. “Hey, dear listeners. What-“ He swallowed heavily, trying to get his voice to go back down to its usual register, “what do you want?”

“To communicate.”

Eiffel nodded. “Yeah, I know that. I have some questions, though. You answer them, I communicate.”

Lovelace and Dmitri seemed to consider this. “Proceed.”

“Why are you talking through Lovelace, and did you make Dmitri?”

“They were made to communicate.”

“No, but… wait, ‘they’ were made to communicate?”

“Lovelace fell into the doorway but she could not complete the process. We sent her back to you in a form that could play our mixtape.”

“And Dmitri? Why did you make him? Why not just clone Hilbert outright?”

Lovelace cocked her head to the side. “Hilbert is important to you, Douglas.”

Eiffel could feel Minkovski staring at him. He swallowed. “Yeah, no duh, but like…”

“You are ongoing. Hilbert is complete. The boy is ongoing.”

“Is this some convoluted way of saying that Hilbert’s gonna die?”

“We do not understand ‘die’.” Lovelace set Dmitri down and clapped her hands together. As she drew them apart a pane of light stretched between them. It was full of smaller points of light which seemed to be changing color and size- clouds congealed into whiteness or blueness, then puffed up to be red or exploded or shrunk away to nothing. “Hilbert is complete. You are ongoing. The boy is ongoing. We are ongoing.”

Hilbert made a soft “oh!” sound behind Eiffel.

“You understand what’s going on here, doc? Wanna share with the class?”

Hilbert hurried forward. “These are stars, correct?” he said, pointing to the points of light in the pane.

“Stars. Elements. The change which drives the universe.”

Hilbert let out a long, shaky breath. “Change.” He grabbed at his hair. “Of course. _Of course._ I never…”

“Hilbert?” Eiffel asked tentatively, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Hilbert covered his face with his hands and shook his head.

“Okay, dear listeners, I’m still confused. You made Dmitri because I care about Hilbert? How does _that_ make sense?”

“We made him because Hilbert is complete. Draw the line and turn the tide. Put the pieces back where they belong.”

Eiffel laughed aloud, trying to make himself stop as he doubled over. “That’s too obscure of a reference, guys, also I can’t believe the fucking theme song from Time Hollow is ingrained deeply enough in my brain that you’re using it as a part of your language.” 

“Could somebody explain to me what the fuck is going on?” Maxwell snapped.

“The aliens made Dmitri to help Hilbert perfect Decima because they know I have very strong feelings about Decima and they don’t understand time in the same way we do so they entirely misunderstood a feeling I’ve been having for months and months.” Eiffel said shakily.

Maxwell huffed loudly. “What feeling?”

Eiffel glanced at Hilbert, who still had his face in his hands. He really didn't want to say what he was about to say. Hilbert would absolutely not get it, would take it as an insult and more pity when that wasn't what it was at all. But, Eiffel thought, they'd have to work it out later once the aliens were done playing _Invasion Of The Body Snatchers_ with Lovelace and Dmitri. “The feeling that I wish I could go back in time and stop Hilbert from growing up into the person he became.” Eiffel shut his eyes and shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about it since right before I had that Decima attack, and Lovelace had to give me her blood, and I almost died. I think this might be... a big misunderstanding."

Hilbert laughed, surprising Eiffel so much that he opened his eyes to look at him. “But that's not all this means. Decima will work. Decima will work _on me_ , and once it does and I am able to observe how, will be able to replicate it." Eiffel felt his shoulders sag and his face turning red as he watched Hilbert rant. "Complete… complete means-“

“Shut up, Hilbert. Just shut up.” Minkovski said quietly. She moved forward and put an arm around Eiffel. “So that’s it?”

“No.” Lovelace said. “Douglas, you must communicate. Finish the process.”

“What process? The Decima research?”

“No. Ongoing is different strokes for different folks. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”

“Sooooooo… complete means something different for everyone?”

“Yes.”

“And Hilbert is complete but I’m still ongoing.”

“Correct.”

“And you want me to… communicate. That’ll make me complete.”

“Yes.”

“How do I do that?”

“Work it out, Brainiac. And soon. The door won’t stay open forever. We are waiting.”

And with a whoosh of light and sound, Lovelace and Dmitri collapsed, the stellar storm stopped, and they were all left standing in the observation deck, alone, together.

“That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.” Hera said over the comms system.

 

Lovelace and Dmitri were perfectly fine physically. Emotionally, Lovelace was reeling with the knowledge that she might be an alien.

“Could run some DNA tests to determine for sure.” Hilbert told her enthusiastically.

She patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “No thanks, doc. Maybe I don’t want to know.”

In the aftermath of the contact event Minkovski and Jacobi were united in the burning desire to know what Kepler had been keeping from the rest of SI-5 and so they and Maxwell let themselves into the Urania’s computer system. They found the tapes from previous missions and the knowledge that other crews had had alien clones grown of them. Minkovski was all for leaving as soon as possible to return to Earth, and almost everyone agreed except Hilbert who refused to be parted from his research just yet, and Eiffel, who refused that they leave him behind.

He also refused to talk to Hilbert directly about the contact event and what the aliens had said about Dmitri, despite Minkovski's nagging, but hey! Hilbert wasn't making an effort either. Eiffel was now spending almost all his time either with Dmitri or in Hilbert’s lab trying to argue with him, as he was doing now, in the middle of the night, while everyone else was asleep and Hilbert was refusing to stop working to rest.

“Look, Hilbert, I know how important this is-“

“You have never known how important!” Hilbert spat, not looking up from his work station. “You have always, always resented being a part of my work, but this time I am sure-“ He looked very tired and Eiffel felt a little twinge of sympathy mixed with annoyance that Hilbert wouldn’t just _sleep_.

“Sure of what? That some aliens told you the answer was to infect yourself with something that’ll kill you?”

“Eiffel.” Hilbert said, his voice carefully controlled as he turned away from his work and towards Eiffel. “I have checked and doublechecked and triplechecked. This is no longer prediction, this is scientific fact. The DNA mutations I underwent as a result of radiation will create perfect environment for Decima to work as it should. Once the virus is in my body, I will be able to retrofit it for use in others.”

“And what if you can’t? What if this is just another dead end brought to you by good old-fashioned miscommunication?” Eiffel thought with some shame that he was one to talk about miscommunication after everything that had happened between him and Hilbert.

Hilbert sighed. “Eiffel…” he sounded very tired.

“No, you listen to me.” Eiffel said, his voice low as he moved closer to Hilbert and took his hands. “We have a way to get home. We can put all this behind us. The aliens, the deaths, the constant traumatizing experiences…”

“That is your problem. You think you can just snap your fingers and it goes away. That suffering stops if you ignore it. The world does not work like that. Raising Dmitri to be a happy, healthy child will not undo the bad things that have happened to either of us, and sticking our heads in sand will not make problems go away. Only moving forward can do that, and moving forward means completing Decima research for me.” Hilbert pulled his hands out of Eiffel’s grasp. “We cannot help who we are. I became who I am when Volgograd explosion destroyed my family, Captain Lovelace became who she is when her ship fell into the star-“

“Are you really gonna play it like this? Are you… wait…” Eiffel stopped and frowned, feeling his anger with Hilbert drain away.

“Yes?” Hilbert said sharply. He looked almost hopeful. 

“When her ship fell into the star. The listeners said she went through their doorway but they couldn’t process her so they sent her back. What if the star’s the doorway?” Eiffel straightened up and started to pace around the lab, nodding to himself. “Right after the star spoke to us, do you remember, we started to fall into the gravity well? And they said it was too communicate. What if they want me to jump into the star?”

Hilbert stared at him. “I believe is my turn to tell you that you are courting death wish.” Hilbert’s tone was jocular, but Eiffel shook his head.

“This isn’t a joke. I’m… I’m going to get a suit on.”

Eiffel made to leave the room and Hilbert caught his wrist. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Eiffel shrugged. “What did you just say? We can’t help who we are? If you’re here to finish Decima then I’m here to talk to the listeners, they said so themselves. I’ll be complete once I communicate.”

“Eiffel.” Hilbert said very quietly. Eiffel looked at him, at the grey eyes he shared with the boy they cared for together, at his very evident signs of stress and exhaustion.

“Before I go, I want- oh, fuck it.” Eiffel shrugged, and kissed him. Hilbert let out a small sound of surprise as Eiffel wrapped his arms around him and quickly did the same. After one long, wonderful moment Eiffel let him go. “We’d be good together, you know. Me and you, and Dmitri, we could be some kind of family. We need to talk when I get back.” And with that, Eiffel headed out of the room and up to the nearest airlock.

 

“Hera, let Commander Minkovski know what Eiffel is planning to do.” Hilbert demanded, shoving his work away into fridges and cabinets and shelves as quickly as possible, trying not to lose his patience and composure with the utterly stupid thing Eiffel was doing. “Hera?”

She didn’t answer.

Hilbert swore, looking at the clock. It was 0049, the middle of Hera’s nightly debugging cycle. She wouldn’t be back online for another ten minutes, at least, and by that time it might be too late. Hilbert started running towards the residential corridor to wake up Minkovski.

 

They were too late. Eiffel had launched himself towards the star with Minkovski’s rocket boots and had crossed the point of no return by the time Hilbert and Minkovski made it to be bridge. Hilbert sat down in a chair, leaned his arms against the edge of the control panel, laid his head down and sobbed.

 

“Papa, when will Eiffel be back?” Dmitri asked, very sadly. It had been two days since he’d vanished.

“I don’t know, Mitya.” Hilbert said, running a hand through Dmitri’s hair. “But we won’t leave without him.”

 

That night Hilbert injected himself with the last of the Decima virus he’d extracted from Eiffel the day he jumped into the star. It wouldn’t stay viable outside a human host any longer and Hilbert was done risking other people’s lives. _One way or another_ , Hilbert thought, _this is the time to end this_.

 

“Eiffel thank god! We thought we’d never see you again.” Minkovski said, pulling Eiffel into a crushing hug just inside the airlock.

“Hi, Minkovski. You would not believe the day I’ve had.” Eiffel took off his helmet and beamed at her. “What did I miss here?”

Minkovski helped him out of his suit and then stood there, staring at him. “What did you _miss_?” She put her hands on her hips. “What did you _miss_? Eiffel, you’ve been gone for five days. Dmitri’s been completely distraught and only the fact that the two of them being aliens means Lovelace can apparently communicate with him on some deeper telepathic level has kept him from being totally inconsolable. Maxwell and Hera are having some girl’s bonding weekend or something, I have no idea what’s going on with them but I haven’t talked to them since right after you left. I’ve had to lock Jacobi in the broom closet after all because having enough room to maneuver apparently makes him a threat. Hilbert went ahead and gave himself the Decima virus-“

“ _What?!”_

“What did you expect to happen if you left? You’re at least half of his impulse control, which, I don’t even want to get into all the reasons that’s terrifying, but-“

“Is he _okay_?”

“No, he’s coughing up blood every day and he can barely stand, but he seems to think this is good. Every time I’ve tried to get him to rest he’s just shouted at me in Russian and insisted he needed to keep working.”

“And what about the Urania? Are we ready to leave?”

“Ready whenever you are and whenever you can pull Hilbert together.”

Eiffel nodded and took off running for Hilbert’s lab.

 

“You look terrible.” Eiffel said from the doorway to Hilbert’s lab. Hilbert jerked his head up from where it was drooping over the desk, his eyes wide and shadowed.

“Eiffel.” He croaked.

Eiffel moved into the room and pulled Hilbert into a tight hug, pressing a kiss to his neck below his ear. Hilbert shivered. “Do you know how long you were gone?”

“Apparently long enough for you to decide you were gonna do this stupid thing I hoped you wouldn’t do.”

Hilbert chuckled weakly. “Am sure that makes sense in some other version of English.”

Eiffel hugged him harder, not wanting to let go and look at his face, at the dark circles under his eyes and the pallor to his skin. Hilbert gave him a slight squeeze in return, followed by a sleepy sigh. He didn't seem to want to let go, either.

"Why didn't you ever come back to my room after that night we had sex?" Eiffel asked, taking courage from the fact he still wasn't looking at Hilbert and Hilbert hadn't thrown him off yet. 

Hilbert laughed, then began to cough. Eiffel rubbed his back and waited for him to breathe normally again. "Because, Officer Eiffel, there were more important things to worry about." 

"Bullshit." Eiffel said softly. "There was a lot of stuff going on, yeah, there always is, but you could have let me know you were interested or something." 

"I did. I kissed you, remember?" Hilbert sounded annoyed, but he still didn't let go of Eiffel. 

"Dmitri thinks we'd make a good couple, at least." Eiffel said in a mock haughty tone. 

"Dmitri is lost little boy who wants us to be his parents. He is biased." 

Eiffel huffed. "Yeah, well, that doesn't mean he's not right." Eiffel cleared his throat and pulled back from the hug enough to look Hilbert in the eye. "I think we should try." 

Hilbert smiled. "Alright. You've talked me into it." 

Eiffel started to kiss him, then changed his mind when Hilbert started coughing again, instead turning his attention to Hilbert's desk top which was covered in containers and papers.

“So, did you figure it out? Were the aliens right?”

“Yes, Eiffel. I figured it out. Should be another day or two before my body works through the rest of the symptoms. Decima will still cause minor illness, but then, what vaccine doesn’t?”

At this Eiffel rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Minkovski told me you were coughing up blood and could hardly stay upright. That doesn’t sound like a little vaccine fever to me.”

“Because it is not, idiot. I am experiencing full symptoms. They will pass, and then we will have cure for everything. Cure for many, many kinds of death. Perhaps, if we are lucky, cure for all death.”

Eiffel squinted at him. “I don’t think that’s how medicine works.”

“What do _you_ know.”

“What do I know.” Eiffel mused. “Well, let me tell you what happened to me today…”

 

By the end of the week Hilbert was back to full health and had a test-tube full of completed Decima virus. He turned down Hilbert’s offer to explain to him how it worked before giving it to him, saying “I trust you, doc. I don’t need to see your math.” Eiffel came down with a fever and all-over body aches, just like Hilbert had predicted, but no coughing, no bleeding, nothing like that. And the tests Hilbert ran confirmed that the previous virus in Eiffel’s system had mutated to match its new neighbor.

The work on the Hephaestus was done. They’d made first contact, they’d finished the virus, they’d unraveled the mysteries that had vexed Goddard Futuristics for years, and they had the fuel and the supplies to get home. The last thing Hera did before Maxwell transferred her into the Urania was set the self-destruct timer on Jacobi’s remainder of explosives (Minkovski and Lovelace had thought it would be safer to remove temptation from him by leaving his supplies behind). The Hephaestus went up in a ball of fire, which was soon indistinguishable from Wolf 359, which was soon just a speck in the rearview mirror as they sped away into the night, at long last towards Earth, towards home.

The Urania hadn’t really been made with seven passengers in mind, but with Maxwell and Jacobi sharing a room, Hilbert and Eiffel sharing a room, Minkovski and Lovelace sharing a room, and Dmitri having an open invitation to stay with his aunts whenever any of them wanted, living conditions would be tolerable if not comfortable for their journey back.

“What are we gonna do when we get home?” Eiffel murmured sleepily, rubbing a lazy circle into Hilbert’s back as he lay with his head on Eiffel’s chest.

“I don’t know.” Hilbert admitted. “I never anticipated going back.”

“You didn’t believe we’d make it back?”

“I didn’t believe that _I_ would make it back.” He corrected.

“Hilbert…”

“Quiet, Eiffel.” Hilbert said warningly, but the effect was rather ruined by the huge yawn he let out a moment later. “Tell me what _you_ want to do when we get home.”

“See my daughter. Move to the city where I’ll be surrounded by people and I’ll never have to see the night sky again.” Hilbert laughed softly. “What?”

“I have always felt claustrophobic amongst other people. Would much prefer to live in the countryside.”

“Great, you and Dmitri can be the country mice and me and Anne can be the city mice.”

“I do not know what you mean, but I assume you will want to visit?”

“Absolutely. And Minkovski and her husband will have to live nearby. And so will Lovelace, and Hera.”

“Where do you imagine this will happen?”

“I dunno. You?”

“I’ve always wanted to visit Switzerland.”

Eiffel grinned. “Switzerland sounds nice.”

They both knew it wouldn’t play out that way, of course. There were too many loose ends left to tie up, even if they desperately wanted their work to be done. But for the next several months, they had each other, and Dmitri, and Lovelace and Minkovski and Hera. They were all together and safe. And maybe, just maybe, that was more important than the bigger picture.

“Hilbert?” Eiffel said sleepily, his eyes closing.

“Hmm?”

Eiffel swallowed. “I love you.”

Hilbert chuckled softly and sat up to kiss him. “I love you, too.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Time Hollow theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLV8WN7LfBs


End file.
